Dublin City Council – Enforcement

Embarrassment? I’m embarrassed everyday walking about the city. Hasn’t changed things though.

I got the impression recently that there are only two staff in enforcement. When I left Dublin they still only had an acting manager and had at least 3 staff vacancies. What is shocking is their inability to move people over from planning.

An FOI request would highlight the short-staffing. As it is an environmental matter it would be free under Access to Information on the Environment Regulations 2007. http://www.environ.ie/en/AboutUs/AccesstoInformationontheEnvironment/RHLegislation/FileDownLoad,2481,en.pdf

I would encourage putting one in and highlighting it with the press. Be sure to ask how long they have been short-staffed.

Might just to that.

Yes three enforcement officers sounds right…I also heard that a meeting was held earlier this year to discuss staff moving into Enforcement…and no one turned up. There is also now conservation Enforcement officer (hasn’t been for over a year) and so any enforcement matter regarding a protected structure (ie a STATUTORILY PROTECTED BUILDING) get put to the end of a very big pile.

@StephenC wrote:

Might just to that.

Yes three enforcement officers sounds right

I think that may have changed. I know Enforcement was decimated with retirements over the last few years, but this year seen alot or redeployment internally with at least 3 planners moving to Enforcement to add to the remaining inspectors there at present.

There is a general lack of respect and pride for Dublin City by its citizens, something I have not experienced in any other EU capital.

When Dublin was gifted to the Free State by the British in 1922, the new Irish administration considered the city a foreign creation, not to be preserved.

Roll-on 90 years later and the Irish had demolished half of Dublin’s historic core and made a complete balls of the rest of it.

The Irish never had the expertise to create a city of their own and they don’t even have the expertise to maintain the ones created for them. This is just a fact of life here in Ireland.

DCC have outsourced scores of expensive studies to the UK and implemented multiple ACAs around Dublin City over the past decade. The problem is that they just don’t have the staff with the passion or expertise to execute and maintain them.

I’m in Spain 5 years and the Spaniards that work to conserve architecture are highly respected and paid extremely well. They are seen as important protectors of the town/city’s heritage. This seems to be an old respected tradition here in Spain that has been long lost in Dublin.

There were planners put over to enforcement. It’s just useless management which is afraid to upset anyone. A fast food takeaway at 6 Aungier Street had two invalidated planning applications for change of use to takeaway earlier this year – refs. 2217/12 & 2512/12 – then just chucked in the idea of applying for planning permission and opened up anyway. It’s a joke.

If you’re writing / complaining, the person with responsibility for planning (including planning enforcement) is Jim Keoghan, Executive Manager of Planning and Development, Block 4, Floor 3, Dublin City Council, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8

@exene1 wrote:

There were planners put over to enforcement. It’s just useless management which is afraid to upset anyone. A fast food takeaway at 6 Aungier Street had two invalidated planning applications for change of use to takeaway earlier this year – refs. 2217/12 & 2512/12 – then just chucked in the idea of applying for planning permission and opened up anyway. It’s a joke.

If you’re writing / complaining, the person with responsibility for planning (including planning enforcement) is Jim Keoghan, Executive Manager of Planning and Development, Block 4, Floor 3, Dublin City Council, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8

100% agree
Although, drop the h :thumbup:

Jim Keogan

Aah yes Mr Keogan…a saviour of Dublin’s unique charms and streetscape? I wonder.
Even in this almost moribund period where the pressure to process application is so low that the Council seem unable to articulate a vision or strategy to improve the city centre. They are however very capable of being prickly with those who raise the issue of the decline of the city centre – as I myself found.

6 Aungier Street was a fiasco. All the more so because one of the city’s heritage groups is in the process of identifying the unique character and streetscape of Aungier Street (which includes a number of the city’s oldest extant structures) ….in partnership with the City Council. The lack of communication and awareness between the silos under the management of Mr Keogan never fails to astonish.