Mary Dunne RIP – A Dublin Fixture

Tributes pour in as O’Connell Street’s ‘dancing lady’ Mary Dunne dies at 87

City Centre in May

Social Housing Schemes failing- Obvious political failure

Landlords back out of long-term social housing rental

Just six new Rental Accommodation Scheme units provided in Dublin city this year

Only six homes have become available to Dublin City Council this year under a scheme designed to encourage private landlords to make their properties available for social housing on a long-term basis.

Almost three times as many landlords removed their flats and houses from the scheme, which was introduced to provide long-term tenancies for people on the social housing waiting list. Ninety more landlords have given the council notice that they want to quit the scheme.

The rental accommodation scheme (RAS) was set up in 2004 to offset the lack of social housing construction. Under the scheme local authorities draw up contracts with landlords to provide housing for people who have been on the waiting list for more than 18 months, and pay rent directly to the landlord on behalf of the tenant.

Four-year minimum Dublin City Council requires landlords to sign up to the scheme for a minimum of four years to ensure security of tenure for people who would in the past have been allocated council housing.

The city council administers just over 1,500 RAS tenancies but is currently dealing with 90 requests from landlords who want to abandon the scheme, with almost no new property owners willing to sign over their flats or houses.

In 2011 landlords provided 226 properties under the scheme in Dublin. Of these, 127 went to people seeking housing. The remaining 99 houses and flats already had tenants. That year 50 landlords took their properties out of the scheme.

In 2012, a similar number of RAS units were provided, but fewer were for new tenants – just 77, while 144 related to RAS contracts for tenants in situ. That year 95 landlords left the scheme.

Last year saw a dramatic drop, with the number of RAS agreements signed halving. Just 32 tenants received new homes under the scheme and 85 agreements were signed for existing tenants, bringing the total number of contracts to 117. However, 101 landlords left the scheme.

From the beginning of this year up to last week, just six new tenancies had been secured through the scheme, 13 RAS contracts were signed for existing tenants and 17 properties were taken back by their owners .

Not willing Fine Gael councillor Naoise Ó Muirí said that even though rent was guaranteed by the council, landlords were not willing to sign long-term contracts for social housing tenants.

“Supply of rented property is so scarce that relying on the private rented market in this way just will not work.”

Wholesale exit At 1,500 current tenancies. the number of homes provided through the scheme introduced 10 years ago was “minuscule” Mr O’Muirí said. He said he expected a “wholesale exit” of the scheme by landlords, leaving more tenants at risk of homelessness.

“Local government is going to have to take a very serious look at getting involved on the supply side of housing in tandem with central Government, whether through direct commissioning or through scaling up to a much greater involvement with capable voluntary housing bodies.”

Proposed Draft Variation (No.17) of the Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017

To the Lord Mayor and                                               Report No.142/2014

Members of Dublin City Council                                Report of the Executive Manager

Proposed Draft Variation (No.17) of the Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017:

Site at the former Enterprise Ireland Lands at Griffith Avenue and Ballymun Road, Glasnevin, Dublin 9

_________________________________________________________________________

PROPOSAL

It is proposed to vary the Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017 by changing the zoning of the subject lands:

From:              Zoning Objective Z6 –   Employment/Enterprise: To provide for the creation and protection of enterprise and facilitate opportunities for employment creation.

To:                  Zoning Objective Z15 –   Community & Institutional Resource Lands: To provide for institutional, educational, recreational, community, green infrastructure, and health uses.

The proposed variation area is defined on the attached map

PURPOSE OF PROPOSED VARIATION

The subject site is part of a larger 3.64 ha landholding used in the recent past by Enterprise Ireland. The 0.97 ha site is located along Griffith Ave, which is a prominent east/west thoroughfare approx 3 km to the north of Dublin City Centre

The Planning Authority considers that it is appropriate to change the zoning of the subject lands from Z6 (Employment/Enterprise) to Z15 (Community & Institutional Resource Lands), for a number of reasons.

In a planning report submitted to Dublin City Council, the Office of Public Works (OPW), on behalf of the Department of Education & Skills (DES), explained that they are seeking to prepare a planning application for the development of a new school building for the Glasnevin Educate Together (GET) on the former Enterprise Ireland Lands at Griffith Avenue and Ballymun Road in Glasnevin. In order to facilitate this planning application a re‐zoning of the proposed site is required.

The proposed site is currently zoned Z6‐ ‘To provide for the creation and protection of enterprise and facilitate opportunities for employment creation’. The provision of a school (referred to in the Development Plan as education) is neither permissible nor open for consideration under this zoning. As such it is proposed to vary the Development Plan to rezone the site to Z15 ‐‘To protect and provide for institutional and community uses and to ensure that existing amenities are protected’, to allow for the provision of a school

The Department of Education & Skills 5 Year Capital Investment Programme outlines the major school projects that will commence construction over the duration of the Programme. In this Programme the Department has identified a number of areas, including the area in which Glasnevin Educate Together School is located where due to demographic changes, it is projected that there will be a requirement for significant additional school provision at both primary and post primary levels over the coming years. The Department’s priority is to ensure that there is sufficient school accommodation to meet projected pupil enrolment increases into the future and it is within this context that the development of the Glasnevin Educate Together School, which is a co‐educational school, from 8 to 16 classrooms is required to address the need for pupil places in that area for the foreseeable future.

The Glasnevin area falls into the Cabra/Phibsboro feeder area for Department projections. The latest child benefit data for that area indicates a requirement for up to 38 classrooms in the area by 2018

The site stakeholder has stated in the supporting document that as per the Development Plan, Z15 lands ’play an important role in the achievement of a more compact city in that they contribute to the creation of vibrant neighbourhoods and a sustainable well‐connected city through the provision of such infrastructure as schools, hospitals and open space. …it is Council policy to cooperate with, in order to promote the strategic long term needs of the city and the county’.

In addition, the Development Plan states that ‘Dublin City Council will actively assist and liaise with the Department of Education and Science (DES) in relation to the provision of schools with particular regard to forecasting demand and the timely identification of suitable sites and phasing arrangements’.

Further Policy NC9 states ‘To facilitate the provision of new schools, school extensions and third level institutions and to have regard to the provisions of the DoEHLG & DES Joint Code of Practice on Planning and the Provision of Schools (2008).’

The subject site is currently an empty and unused portion of a larger area of land which does not presently contribute to employment or enterprise within the city, and is relatively restricted in size in comparison to the remaining larger adjoining area of Z6 land. As a consequence a proposed rezoning to Z15 is considered unlikely to negatively impact on the established industrial legacy of the area, or have a detrimental impact on the Dublin’s strategic land bank of Z6 zoned lands.

Taking into consideration the surplus/unused nature of the site at present, the proximity of the land in an established residential area and the projected requirements for significant additional school provision over the coming years by the Dept of the Education, the proposed rezoning from Z6 to Z15 will facilitate a more appropriate use for this land and allow any future suitable development to utilise a prominent underutilised/underperforming area of the city.

PROCEDURE FOLLOWED

Public Notice and Display

Members of the public were invited to make submissions regarding the proposed variation. In accordance with the procedures set out in Section 13 & 20 of the Planning and Development Acts 2000-2010, the proposed variation was placed on public display from 28^th February 2014 to 28^th March 2014 and a public notice was inserted into the Irish Times.

Copies of the proposed variation and amendment, together with SEA and AA screening reports, were made available for inspection at the Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8 within the above listed dates. Details were also available on the City Council’s website at www.dublincity.ie.

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT (SEA) / APPROPRIATE ASSESSMENT (AA) SCREENING

SEA

The Planning Authority determined, using the screening criteria set out in Schedule 2A Planning and Development Regulations 2001-2004, the DoEHLG SEA Guidelines and Annex 2 of Directive 2001/42/EC, as amended, that an SEA is not necessary for the proposed variation of the Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017. The prescribed authorities were notified of this determination and no objection was received within the prescribed period. The Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaelthacht did however request clarification as to whether any protected species including bats inhabit the area. This concern is clarified in Managers Response C.

AA

An Appropriate Assessment Screening was undertaken of the proposed variation of the Dublin City Development Plan, in accordance with the requirements of Article 6(3) of the EU Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC). The proposed variation was not predicted to have a likely impact on the key features or the conservation function of any Natura 200 sites.

The prescribed bodies were notified of the above determination in relation to the AA Screening and did not object within the appropriate period

REPORT ON SUBMISSIONS AND OBSERVATIONS

The following persons or bodies made submissions during the public consultation:

Relevant Issues Raised in the Submissions Received & Managers Response

A total of 78 comments/observations were received by Dublin City Council regarding the proposed variation. The submissions have been assessed and all relevant issues/concerns have been taken into account and a Managers Response and Recommendation prepared in each case.

1. Submission No.1 (Environmental Protection Agency), No.2 (National Roads Authority), No. 4 (Fisheries Ireland) and No.9 (Dublin & Mid East Regional Authorities) acknowledged the proposed variation and have no objection or comments/observations to make.

Mangers Response

No comment

Managers Recommendation

No change necessary to the proposed variation

2. Submission No. 7 (Roisin Shortall T.D), No.12 (Joe Costello TD & Emer Costello MEP) and 71 other submissions from individual residents, mainly from the locality, acknowledged and offered support for the proposed variation.

The submissions offer support for the proposed rezoning of the lands to facilitate additional education facilities/provision in the local area.

Mangers Response

The various observations supporting the proposed variation are welcomed

Managers Recommendation

No change necessary to the proposed variation

3. Submission No.5 (Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht) asked whether during the SEA Screening process if it was established if any protected species inhabit the proposed variation area, in particular any bat species.

Managers Response

During the SEA Screening of the subject site, it was established that the proposed variation is unlikely to have any significant environmental impact. In reference to the possibility of bat activity and bat species roosting on the subject site, Dublin City Council collated bat activity records for the City from 2000 – 2012. Based on these statistics, no evidence of bat activity was recorded on the subject site. The proposed rezoning is therefore unlikely to have any significant on the City’s bat population.

Managers Recommendation

No change necessary to the proposed variation

RECOMMENDATION TO THE CITY COUNCIL

Having regard to the submissions received and to the Manager’s Response to the issues raised therein, it is recommended that the City Council adopt the proposed variation (No.17) of the Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017.

Jim Keogan

Executive Manager

6^th May 2014

New Building Regulations & Self-Build Scenarios

On 26 February 2014 Dept Environment issued an Information Note on the Implications of SI No. 9 of 2014 for Self-Builders to local authorities and industry stakeholders, including the Irish Association of Self-Builders.

·         The Building Control (Amendment) Regulations 2014 place no restrictions on self-build. There is no difficulty with a self-builder signing the statutory form of undertaking by the builder at commencement stage or the statutory certificate of compliance on completion.

·         The twin aims of the new regulations are to:

1.       ensure that buildings are designed and constructed in accordance with the requirements of the Building Regulations, and

2.       strengthen competence and professionalism on site.

·         From a self-build perspective, the new regime will work as follows:

·         The owner will, as before, assume responsibility as the builder for ensuring that the building works will comply with the building regulations.  They must also satisfy themselves that any one they employ to undertake part of the works is competent to do those works.

·         At commencement, they will notify the local authority that they themselves are the builder and sign the builder’s undertaking required for building control purposes.

·         At commencement a Self-Builder must also assign a competent, registered construction professional (i.e. architect, building surveyor or chartered engineer) to:

o   certify the design, and

o   inspect the works and certify the completed dwelling (the assigned certifier).

·         The Assigned Certifier will be the point of contact with the building control authority for lodgement of compliance documentation and certificates, etc.

·         At completion the Self-Builder and the Assigned Certifier will both certify the building.

·         Work involving repair, renewal and renovation work or extensions less than 40 square metres to existing dwellings do not come within the scope of the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations.

Danny McConnell and the Herald

How can a person living on a Senator’s expenses claim to be the “no expenses” candidate? Embarassing if it is taken seriously!

Equality before the law. Letter from a constituent.

Dear Bill,

Article 40 of the Irish Constitution and Article 20 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union hold that all citizens must be treated equally before the law.

The following three quotes are clear on how citizens are to be treated equally before the law and as the Dáil and Seanad seems to continually ignore the constitutional force pertaining to this I must conclude that TDs and Senators are either ignorant of the facts or deliberately willing to act unconstitutionally and unlawfully.

“This conclusion, that there is a right of bodily integrity, gets support from a passage in the Encyclical Letter, “Peace on Earth”:-

“Beginning our discussion of the rights of man, we see that every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity and to the means which are necessary and suitable for the proper development of life; these are primarily FOOD, clothing, SHELTER, rest, MEDICAL CARE, and finally the NECESSARY SOCIAL SERVICES.””

(G Ryan v. Attorney General.) http://supremecourt.ie/supremecourt/sclibrary3.nsf…

“Those entitled to State aid by constitutional right SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DEPEND ON NUMERICAL STRENGTH AND OR POLITICAL CLOUT to achieve their just desserts. Needs should be met as a matter of constitutional priority and savings, if necessary, should be made elsewhere. A citizen’s constitutional right must be responded to by the State in full. A partial response has no justification in law, even in difficult financial circumstances which may entail the raising of new tax revenue to meet such claims – happily a situation which has not pertained for several years.”

(Sinnott v. Minister of education.)

http://www.supremecourt.ie/supremecourt/sclibrary3…

“I am satisfied that the provisions of the Constitution which enact that all citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law require that, prima facie, EVERY CITIZEN HAS THE SAME RIGHTS AS EVERY OTHER CITIZEN, but I am also satisfied that the concluding part of the section indicates that the enactments of the State may have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social function. This gives a wide scope for differentiation between individual citizens, but it DOES NOT ALLOW FOR THE ARBITRARY PREFERENCE OF ONE CITIZEN TO ANOTHER.

(East Donegal Co-operative Livestock Mart Limited and Others v. Attorney General)

http://www.supremecourt.ie/supremecourt/sclibrary3…

If I earn €100 and you €50 and the tax rate is 10% I pay €10 and you €5 that is I pay twice as much tax as you and you end up with €45, me €90, i.e. I twice as well off before and after tax or charge. We both have been treated equally before the law.

If we are both charged €10 however, I end up with €90 and you with €40 whereas before at a 10% rate you ended with €45. That is an arbitrary preference of one citizen to another so is unconstitutional and unlawful. It is also making you pay the same tax though earning less and leaving me more than twice as well off after the charge as I was before it. In other words, I have been treated more than equally to you.

If I don’t receive a reply to this within a reasonable time I’ll assume that you don’t care about the lower earners being cheated out of more of their income than higher earners through unlawful charges and will vote accordingly.

Government is not a private commercial company. It must treat all citizens equally and if it doesn’t it can be taken to court and in this case, I think, be forced to refund all unlawful charges.

Sincerely,

Michael

Shangan Ave.,

Ballymun,

Dublin 9.

Bill in Google Scholar

Citation indices

Feminists and religious conservatives in strange alliance over transactional sex

Opinion: The right to say No is important – and so is the right to say Yes

Supporters of the Turn Off the Red Light campaign at a demonstration outside Leinster House last year. Photograph: Cyril Byrne, Fionola Meredith

First published: Sun, Dec 29, 2013, 00:01

Feminists and religious fundamentalists shouldn’t mix. If they do find common cause, it’s often a sign that one-dimensional moral or ideological fanaticism – rigid adherence, fuelled by heightened emotion, to absolutist messages and beliefs – has become more important than what happens to real people in the real world.

Take the planned introduction of new laws criminalising the purchase of sex in Ireland, north and south. In the North, the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill, proposed by DUP peer and staunch Free Presbyterian Lord Morrow, is now at the committee stage at Stormont. The Bill, which will make it illegal to buy sex, effectively conflates sex workers and targets of human trafficking, treating them not as two distinct and occasionally overlapping categories of people, but as one homogeneous group of oppressed and distressed victims. The apparently unthinkable notion of a woman, or indeed a man, actively choosing to make money from selling sex is entirely absent. Nonetheless, the Bill has been given an enthusiastic welcome by many women’s rights campaigners, especially Women’s Aid, which justifies its position with the claim that “anyone buying sexual services is supporting sexual slavery and the degradation of human rights”. (We don’t know what sex workers themselves think about the proposals, because nobody, it seems, bothered to ask them.)
Free choice
The picture in the South is similar. In June, the Oireachtas justice committee backed the introduction of laws against the buyers of sex. This was claimed as a victory by Turn Off the Red Light, an anti-prostitution campaign largely driven by Ruhama, a project of two of the religious orders associated with the Magdalene laundries, and the Immigrant Council, which was founded by a nun from one of those orders and is now directed by a self-described radical feminist. Here, too, the ramped-up talk is all of exploitation and harm, damage and coercion: the notion of free choice and personal agency is dismissed as an impossibility. It seems that prostitutes only exist if they are wrecked, passive creatures, destroyed by the abhorrent appetites of men, and willing to accept guidance and succour. There is a repeated emphasis on “sending messages”, both negative and positive: Turn Off the Red Light says that “if one woman is for sale this sends the message that potentially all women are for sale”. Criminalising clients, on the other hand, “send[s] a clear message” that in Irish society “it is not acceptable to buy another person like a commodity for personal gratification”.

Radical feminists and religious conservatives (or an unholy combination of the two) are able to lead the charge on this issue because both are driven by their united revulsion for transactional sex as a societal evil, either as moral vice or as a form of entrenched violence against women. Both groups are focused entirely on the symbolic “message” they wish to send to society at large: that prostitution is an abomination which must be routed out and eradicated for the good of all. And both are wilfully blind to the consequences of their sanctimonious stance for the very individuals they say they want to rescue and protect: the sex workers themselves, some of whom, inconveniently enough, refuse to allow themselves to be saved.
Flaw of criminalisation
Evidence from around the world shows that criminalising clients does not wipe out prostitution, or even substantially reduce demand. But it does hurt sex workers, placing them at increased risk of violence, exposing them to stress and ill-health, making them feel stigmatised and hunted and completely overlooked when it comes to decision-making processes.

Where buying sex is outlawed, it is the people selling it who pay the price. In 2012, UNAids , the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids, stated “the approach of criminalising the client has been shown to backfire on sex workers”, creating “an environment of fear and marginalisation”. What does that matter when the word has gone out – and been enshrined in law – that prostitution is morally and ideologically wrong?

Nobody in their right mind would condone the horrors of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, or indeed coercion of any variety, where it does exist. But to say that everyone who sells sex is a victim is patently untrue; worse, it is culpably disingenuous, refusing to admit the complicated reality of prostitution, and – for all the rhetoric of degradation and slavery – denying women and men working in the sex industry the power to make decisions, however unpalatable, for themselves.

By indulging in this pseudo-philanthropic meddling (“we know what’s best for you, you must be saved”) these ideologues, both secular and religious, also deprive sex workers of the second most important and hard-won freedom after the right to say no: the right – if they so choose – to say yes.

Tormey recommends that DCC party reps plus the City management meet DoE and Hogan

Dublin City Council ‘will lose €2bn in assets’ to Irish Water

City manager Owen Keegan says local authority will be left with €330m pensions liability

First published: Tue, Dec 17, 2013, 01:00

Dublin City Council will be left with hundreds of millions in liabilities and will lose some €2 billion in assets following the transfer of its services to Irish Water next month, city manager Owen Keegan has told councillors.

In what has been his stronger statement since becoming city manager earlier this year, Mr Keegan said the transition was set to result in higher charges for businesses, could damage the council’s ability to respond to severe weather events, and was likely to cause “very significant financial and operational risks to the city council” .

The council was facing pension liabilities for water services staff of €330 million without the assets to fund them and this was the “ single most significant area of concern”, Mr Keegan said. “In the normal course of events one would expect that when a function transfers from one public service agency to another, public service agency responsibility for legacy pensions associated with the function would also transfer.”
‘Major liability’
Assets of approximately €2 billion were transferring to Irish Water “without any compensation” to the council. These assets had been built not only on funding from the government but from the commercial rates paid by the business people of the the city.

“It seems unreasonable that a major liability relating to these assets will remain with the council notwithstanding the fact that the assets have transferred to Irish Water. The pension liability is directly related to the underlying water assets and was incurred in developing and maintaining those assets.”

The council was obliged to sign agreements to provide water services as agents of Irish Water for the next 12 years, but although the transfer was due to take place on January 1st next, the council had yet to be given a final draft of the Service Level Agreement. However Mr Keegan said he had already been made aware the council was to be left €1.7 million short of what was needed to run water services in 2014.
‘Violation’ of principle
This represented “a violation” of the principle that the council should be recouped in full for the costs it incurs under the agreement, he said. “Local authorities should not be in a position where they are providing services on behalf of Irish Water for which they will not be fully reimbursed.”

If this budget deficit continued in future years, the council would lack the capacity to react to unforeseen weather such as floods or freezes.

“In previous years when there was severe weather we had no option but to respond, but if we are not going to recouped for it, that will put us in a very difficult situation.”

A uniform national charge was due to be set for businesses, which was likely to be higher than the current rate charged in the city. The council would be unable to compensate business for any increase.

“It seems likely that water charges will have to be increased, we won’t be able to compensate businesses for any increase. I personally think that is a major loss.”

Mr Keegan also presented a report from the council’s law department that pointed out that the published Bill does not prohibit the sale of Irish Water or its assets.

He told councillors his predecessor as manager, Irish Water managing director John Tierney, and Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan were requested to attend or send representatives to last night’s meeting but declined.