COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, September 12, 2022

MOTION NO. 10

MOTION: Councillor P. Gogarty

That the Chief Executive, noting concerns raised by residents and businesses in relation to the quality of bin collections, cleansing and litter picking (in village areas), undertakes to investigate ways of improving service provision for the citizens of south Dublin; and if a statement can be made on the matter.

REPORT:

The Council’s Public Realm Section provides a variety of cleansing services across the County as follows –

  1. The servicing of on-street litter bins on a daily basis, the service consists of full time operatives servicing litter bins on dedicated routes each day and this includes servicing of bins on Sundays and bank holidays.
  2. Daily cleaning of town and village centres in Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan, Palmerstown, Rathcoole, Rathfarnham, Templeogue and Walkinstown.  This service is also provided on Sundays and bank holidays.
  3. Daily cleaning of parks and servicing of park litter bins on a daily basis.
  4. The operation of mobile cleansing crews dealing with the cleaning and litter picking of parks and estate open spaces, including the response to illegal dumping and collections from Tidy Towns and community clean up events.
  5. The road sweeping service provided under contract to the Council by Oxigen Environmental Ltd.
  6. Graffiti removal which is provided by Public Realm painting staff and also by specialist contractor where chemical removal of graffiti is required.
  7. These services are considered to be priority services within Public Realm, and in this regard they are the first tasks to be assigned to staff each day.  What this means in effect is that where a regular operative is not available on a given day a replacement is assigned to their task as a priority, before any other tasks are assigned.   
  8. The total provision for all of the above services in the 2022 revenue budget is €8.2m.

Information relevant to the provision of these services is included in the reports on the Litter Management Plan which are presented to the area committees on a twice yearly basis.  Any issues raised by elected members through this process are taken into consideration and responded to in an appropriate manner.

Cleansing services are kept under constant review and as issues come to light through area committee business, membersnet and customer care items or through ongoing monitoring and supervision they are responded to in a timely manner.  Where certain changes or improvements to a service are required then these have always been acted on and this will continue to be the case.  For example the need to provide daily cleaning and servicing of litter bins in park locations which arose during the pandemic has now become a permanent feature of the cleaning services provided by this Council.

Issues such as the provision of additional street litter bins arise from time to time as area committee agenda items and where possible these are responded to in a positive manner with additional bins provided as requested by elected members.  Similarly where locations of persistent littering or illegal dumping are raised by elected members then these are factored in to the regular response by public realm operations, with illegal dumping incidents being responded to within a 24 hour time frame where possible.  As the county grows and new urban centres, public parks and residential areas become established then the services provided will have to expand accordingly.

A review has been carried out of litter and cleansing issues which have been brought to the attention of public realm staff through CMAS, membersnet and customer care.  The results of the review suggest that there have been no major issues in recent times that would require any substantial change to the configuration of cleansing services as they are currently.  One recent issue with regard to a number of litter bins not being serviced in the Lucan area has been resolved, this issue came to light during the week commencing June 13th and action was taken in the following days to address the matter.