COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF TALLAGHT AREA COMMITTEE

Monday, September 23, 2019

QUESTION NO. 7

QUESTION: Councillor Teresa Costello

"To ask the Chief Executive what steps the Council is taking to secure the boundary at Kilnamanagh to prevent bonfires, illegal drugs and alcohol sales and to facilitate local sports clubs in developing sports facilities at this location?"

REPLY:

"As in previous years the Council will again in 2019 adopt a cross departmental approach, utilising the services of Public Realm, Waste Enforcement, Environmental Awareness, Library Service, Housing and Community Services Departments to prevent damage and promote the “Safe Halloween” message. 

The Council's Halloween Safety and Environmental Awareness Campaign will be launched later in the year and will again include the publication of a colourful information leaflet providing facts and tips on how to stay safe at Halloween. The leaflet will also contain details of the various family events to be hosted by South Dublin County Council’s Libraries.

The “Bulbs Not Bonfires” initiative will run again this year. This is a reward available through the Council’s innovative Social Credits Scheme which provides communities with flowers in the spring in return for organising alternative Halloween activities that does not harm our environment.

A free pass to Ballymount Civic Amenity Centre will again be provided to every Social Credit applicant / group from around mid October to encourage recycling, one pass allows one entry for one car.  These passes will remain valid until mid November.

The awareness and prevention measures which have been taken in the past and will be taken again this year are as follows –

The operational response to Halloween in 2019 will include the following elements.

All available resources will be deployed to the preventative collections of bonfire materials prior to this Halloween, crews will be assigned to this task as necessary during normal working hours but also at weekends and on the run up to October 31st itself. Early contact will be made with the Gardai to ensure that information is exchanged between SDCC and AGS and that assistance is provided as necessary in the effort to locate and remove the threat associated with bonfires and the storage of bonfire materials.  Priority will again be given to the removal of material located beside or very close to houses, park facilities such as playgrounds and pavilions, under overhead services such as power lines, and on main traffic routes (roads/ verges) where a threat may arise to traffic and where the Council are requested to take action by the Gardaí.   Materials will not be removed from private property.

The exercise to survey and map bonfire sites in 2018 recorded a total of 280 bonfire sites in total across the County.  The mapping exercise will be repeated once again in 2019 and this will provide details of bonfire sites to be cleaned and these sites will also then need to be revisited for reinstatement in 2020 once ground conditions permit.

In 2018 the Council’s Waste Enforcement Section were in contact with over 150 businesses to advise them of their obligations regarding waste regulations, particularly relative to pallets and tyres.  Regrettably however 1,100 pallets were still collected from stockpiled material in the days immediately before Halloween and tyres were also included in the stockpiling and movement of “waste” to fuel bonfires. Attention will again in 2019 be paid to commercial premises where waste is stored and may be targeted as bonfire materials. In 2018 for the first time unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs / Drones) were used to detect the illegal stockpiling of bonfire material.   These drones are an important addition to the waste enforcement toolkit, and will provide evidence to officers on the ground of areas where visibility is sometimes difficult.

Over the weekend and days immediately prior to Halloween 2018, from Saturday October 27th to Wednesday October 31st, a total of 144.4 tonnes of bonfire materials was collected by this Council.  In total the Council collected 522.9 tonnes of waste during both the lead up to Halloween and from the clean ups which took place during the weeks after Halloween.  The total cost to the Council's Public Realm Section in 2018 was €138,940. 

The Council's operational response to Halloween in 2019 will once again involve the following -

With regard to the open space in Kilnamanagh where the bonfire has been located in the past the Council's Public Realm section has been liaising with the Climate Change / Water and Drainage Capital Section who have a grant under the EU funded LIFE scheme for the Dublin Urban Rivers LIFE project, and this project includes the possible siting of a wetland within the Kilnamanagh area on the portion of open space in question. This will be subject to topographical survey and other engineering prerequisite requirements before progressing to planning and consultation, including environmental assessments. This work will be progressed by the Climate Change / Water and Drainage Capital Section in 2019 & 2020.

In addition the Public Realm Section intends to install a footpath around this open space and this will have the effect of increasing legitimate activity and providing passive surveillance in the area. This scheme was included in the 2018 public realm improvement works programme however it did not proceed as planned due to the possibility of conflict with the LIFE project mentioned above.  These footpath works will be co-ordinated with the Climate Change / Water and Drainage Capital Section to ensure they are compatible with each other, and will proceed at the appropriate time.

In addition to the above the Kilnamanagh residents have requested a meeting with the Council in order to coordinate measures to be taken in the run up to Halloween.  This meeting request will be facilitated in the coming weeks and the elected members for the local area will be notified of the arrangements.  An Garda Siochana will be invited to attend this meeting also and the issues of illegal drugs and alcohol sales will be raised with the Gardai when we meet.  With regard to further development of sports facilities in the area, the Council is in regular contact will all the relveant sports groups in the area.  There are at present however no plans to fence off the area of open space in question."