COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, November 13, 2023
QUESTION NO. 33
QUESTION: Councillor F. Timmons
To ask the Chief Executive for a detailed report into plans to hold Repair Cafes to include attendance and feedback at recently held Repair Café ?
REPLY: South Dublin County Council in conjunction with Clondalkin Tidy Towns and The Rediscovery Centre ran a Repair Café in Aras Chronain on Saturday 30th September from 10am – 4pm. Repair Cafés are free meeting places where people bring along broken items and work with one of the experts to help them repair their items. At the event, there were experts in textiles, furniture, and bicycles. People could reserve 45-minute timeslots through Eventbrite. There were 21 slots available across the 3 topics. On the day we had approximately a third of the appointments arrive and we had 3 walk ins.
The Mayor of South Dublin, Cllr Alan Edge spent an hour chatting with the public and the facilitators. The event was promoted on SDCC social media channels, through adverts in the Echo and the Dublin Gazette and through Clondalkin Tidy Towns.
While attendance was poor, very bad weather on the day potentially added to the no shows. Based on the poor attendance we do not propose to hold Repair Café’s as stand-alone events at this time but will programme them instead as part of an event.