COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, October 12, 2026

QUESTION NO.5

QUESTION: Councillor L. Dunne

To ask the Chief Executive for an update on the Council's commitment to reintroduce a county-wide participatory budgeting initiative, including the recommendations arising from the independent evaluation of the €300K Have Your Say programme, the establishment and work of the new Steering Group, and a timeline for the introduction of the new scheme.

REPLY:

€300K Have Your Say was a participatory budgeting initiative that ran in each Local Electoral Area (LEA) in South Dublin County from 2017 to its completion in 2023. It was the first participatory budgeting initiative of its kind, both for South Dublin County Council and in Ireland.

Following completion of the roll-out in each LEA in 2023, a full evaluation of the initiative was carried out by independent evaluator, Dr Rob Worrell. The findings and recommendations of this report were presented to and accepted by the Council, including a specific recommendation related to the fact that there was no process for the re-allocation of unspent funding when a project was unable to go ahead and that this should be addressed in any future iteration of participatory budgeting. 

At the  Organisation Procedures and Finance Committee meeting in September 2024, it was agreed that a new Steering Group would be established to examine the recommendations from this evaluation report and consider how best to progress implementation. The steering group was established and met once on 31 March 2025.

Instead a €1,000,000 Local Priorities Fund was introduced, as part of the 2026 adopted annual budget, to give Councillors the opportunity to fund specific projects within their local electoral area, and it is proposed that this fund is continued for each subsequent budget for the remainder of the council term.