COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF RATHFARNHAM/TEMPLEOGUE-TERENURE AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

QUESTION NO. 10

QUESTION: Councillor D. O'Donovan

"To ask the Chief Executive how many reports of abandoned cars have been received for the Rathfarnham/Templeogue-Terenure area in the past 12 months and how do these figures compare to the previous 36 months?  How many cars have actually been removed following such reports over the past 48 month period?"

REPLY:

Section 71 of the Waste Management Act, 1996, as amended describes "abandoned" as follows: 

“abandoned”, in relation to a vehicle, includes left in such circumstances or for such period that it is reasonable to assume that the vehicle has been abandoned, and cognate words shall be construed accordingly".

The figure for abandoned vehicles are not available on an electoral area basis. However, the following is on outline of the complaints / reports received on a countywide basis from 2014 to date.

2014  134 
2015  179
2016  387

This subject was discussed at length at the recent Environment, Public Realm & Climate Change SPC (Held on 1st November 2016) at which it was noted that while the figure of reports / complaints received has increased significantly, certain complaints of "abandoned" vehicles are not necessarily always considered to be abandoned vehicles but rather may fall into traffic matters or may also relate to "nuisance vehicles" are not in fact abandoned, such as:

It was further agreed at the SPC to undertake an analysis of the activity pertaining to the 387 reports received in 2016 and to provide a report to the next SPC meeting.  This analysis is just commencing and I regret that it is not possible to provide the detail on the activity for the past 48 months as requested in this question.