COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, December 10, 2018

MOTION NO. 2

MOTION: Councillor M. Ward

This Council calls on the Chief Executive to introduce a programme of runs similar to Dublin Cities 5 Alive Challenge.  This Challenge encourages people to take up regular exercise, or supports those who have taken up jogging and needs a push to keep going,

REPORT:

South Dublin County Council’s Sports Office and the South Dublin County Sports Partnership currently offer a wide variety of athletic opportunities in the County:

Four weekly Parkruns are delivered each Saturday morning averaging over 500 participants in total as follows:

• Waterstown Parkrun 80-100 participants weekly
• Tymon Parkrun 120 participants weekly
• Corkagh Parkrun has 150 participants weekly
• Griffeen Parkrun has 150 participants weekly 

There is also a junior Parkrun in Griffeen Park on Saturday mornings that attracts between 120 and 150 junior runners each week.

Operation Transformation partnered with Parkrun last year to widen the opportunities for people to train and run within their local area.  Last year twenty-four groups signed up with the South Dublin County Sports Partnership to avail of funding to deliver walking / running groups locally to follow the "Couch to 5k" programme offered via the operation transformation programme. This initiative engaged more than 800 people in exercise at a local level and 332 people also registered locally to participate in the 5km walk which launches the operation transformation programme.  Expressions of interest have been requested from community groups for the January 2019 programme.

The Council’s Sports Office also delivers two very successful athletic programmes through the year.

• The “primary schools cross country programme” catered for 3,500 children participating each month from February through to May.  
• "Marathon Kids" provides an eight-week athletics programme for primary school for children to complete the marathon distance within that period and 1,592 children completed the final stage of the 2018 in Santry stadium on 14th November

South Dublin County Sports Partnership also delivers the “Daily Mile Challenge” which has 2,500 children registered as running a mile every day.

2018 also saw the inaugural “South Dublin 10km” event taking place in the Clondalkin / Grange Castle area as part of the Dublin Race Series in addition to the second hosting of the Gaelforce event in Tallaght.

As outlined above there are a wide range of opportunities and supports for residents of the County to participate in running programmes at various levels but local athletic groups and organisations that are interested in facilitating a programme similar to the programme referred to in the Motion are welcome to apply for support and funding through the Council's Health & Wellbeing/Healthy County programmes during 2019.