Latest news with #NorthInnerCity
Irish Times
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Lights, cameras, inaction: CCTV cameras to catch Dublin's dumpers not installed ‘as they could knock out traffic lights'
CCTV cameras due to be operational from last January to catch illegal dumpers in Dublin's north inner city have not been installed due to a dispute between the council's waste and public lighting departments. Councillors were on Tuesday told the project has been delayed because the cameras cannot be attached to 'public lighting poles' as had been planned by the waste management division. Barry Woods, Dublin City Council 's head of waste management, said he had thought 'probably naively' that the cameras could be mounted on the existing public lighting system. 'Unfortunately, we have been advised by public lighting management that CCTV cameras cannot be attached to any of their assets.' READ MORE Some cabling powering street lights also powered traffic lights and the lighting section was concerned vandalism to the cameras could 'knock out the traffic lights', Mr Woods said. The lighting section had also said its lamp standards were 'heritage assets not suitable for mounting CCTV cameras,' he added. 'This has delayed the installation of CCTV cameras.' The waste management division was working with public lighting management and road works control to install new poles to accommodate CCTV cameras 'that will only use solar power for the first phase of the scheme', Mr Woods said. 'We anticipate poles and cameras being installed within the next four weeks.' Several councillors said they were unhappy the delay and that they had not been informed the cameras were not operational. Green Party councillor Janet Horner said she had spoken on radio last January 'defending the council' and 'insisting the council was going to fulfil its promise' to immediately install the cameras. 'I think it is really bad form seeing the timeline slip like this. We are the ones going out trying to communicate a public message on it,' she said. Mr Woods on Tuesday rejected any suggestion 'we are not committed as an executive to deliver a cleaner city'. The council was 'just about to roll out a major advertising campaign across the city to make people more aware of littering', he said. 'We don't create the litter, it's the public that create the litter,' he said. 'We are doing our bit.' The council had last September announced plans to use CCTV to identify illegal dumpers for the first time in almost a decade. Three streets in the north inner city, the capital's worst litter black spot, were chosen as pilot locations: Belvedere Place, Sherrard Street Lower and Summer Street North. The north inner city is continuously identified as the dirtiest urban area in the State by Irish Business Against Litter. The council installed CCTV a decade ago at litter black spots in the north inner city as part of a crackdown on illegal dumping. It subsequently erected a poster featuring 12 dumpers, with their faces blurred. However, the move aroused the attention of the Data Protection Commission , which questioned the proportionality of the scheme and the rights to privacy of the dumpers. The commission in 2018 undertook an investigation of CCTV use by local authorities nationally and concluded existing litter pollution and waste management law did not provide for using CCTV to identify dumpers. New legislation, the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022, amended the Litter Pollution Acts to allow CCTV use, and the council has been working for the past two years with various State agencies to develop a new scheme. Mr Woods in January said the data-protection impact assessments had been approved for the three chosen streets and it envisaged the cameras being operational by the end of that month.
BreakingNews.ie
30-06-2025
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Councillor Ray McAdam elected as the new Lord Mayor of Dublin
Councillor Ray McAdam has been elected as the new Lord Mayor of Dublin. At Friday's annual meeting of Dublin City Council in City Hall, Councillor Ray McAdam was elected the 358th Lord Mayor of Dublin, succeeding Councillor Emma Blain. Advertisement McAdam was first elected to Dublin City Council in 2009, to represent the North Inner City and has been re-elected at every subsequent Local Election- in 2014, 2019 and 2024, when he topped the poll for Fine Gael. The Lord Mayor confirmed that the theme of his term of office will be, 'Celebrating Dublin' - a year-long focus on championing the city's people, places, and potential. The Lord Mayor said: 'Dublin is a city I love deeply. But like many Dubliners, I know it can do better. "That's why the theme of my mayoralty is simple but powerful: Celebrating Dublin. To celebrate Dublin is not to ignore its problems. It's the opposite. It's about lifting our city up and asking it, and ourselves, to live up to the best of what it can be.' Advertisement The Lord Mayor currently serves as Chair of the Council's Protocol Committee and has served as Leader of the Fine Gael group on Dublin City Council for seven years, most recently following the June 2024 Local Elections. He is also a member of both the Housing and the Mobility & Public Realm Strategic Policy Committees. In his sixteen years as a Dublin City councillor, he has held a wide range of senior roles, including Chair of the Planning & Urban Form Strategic Policy Committee, Chair of the North Inner City Policing Committee, and Chair of the Dublin Central Area Committee. He is currently co-Chair of the O'Devaney Gardens Redevelopment Community Consultative Forum, and serves on the boards of the Grangegorman Development Agency and Dublin Town. Advertisement The Lord Mayor was born in Cavan and raised in Northern Ireland, where he was educated at St. Michael's College, Enniskillen. He moved to Dublin in 2002 to study Philosophy and Political Science at Trinity College. Before entering elected office, he worked in sales and later as a Political Aide to Minister Paschal Donohoe in the Oireachtas. The Lord Mayor's term will be anchored by five key priorities: -Launching a Lord Mayor's Commission on Dublin 2050 to develop a long-term vision for the capital's city centre; Advertisement The Lord Mayor said: 'Cities across the world are being reshaped by post-pandemic life, changing how we shop, move, gather, and live. Dublin can't drift - it must lead. This Commission will bring people together from every part of city life to ask one central question: what should Dublin's city centre feel and look like by 2050?' -Tackling vacancy and dereliction by creating a public Dublin Vacancy Map and pushing for the reuse of empty buildings; -Promoting sport and physical activity in every neighbourhood through the 'Get Dublin Moving' initiative; -Embedding accessibility and inclusion into the city's services and spaces as part of a new Dublin Disability Inclusion Drive; -Establishing 'Young Dubliners Speak' - a citywide platform to give young people a voice in shaping civic life. This reflects the Lord Mayor's belief that Dublin's future must be built with ambition, inclusion, and collaboration at its heart. Meanwhile, councillor John Stephens was elected the Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin at the meeting.
Irish Times
30-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Cavan's Ray McAdam is elected Lord Mayor of Dublin
Councillor Ray McAdam has become the 358th Lord Mayor of Dublin. He is the third Fine Gael politician in a row to hold the position in a first for the party. Mr McAdam received the backing of 34 of the 63 city councillors, with Sinn Féin's Kourtney Kenny securing 22 votes. Born in Co Cavan and raised in Co Fermanagh, Mr McAdam studied philosophy and political science at Trinity College Dublin where he joined Young Fine Gael. He was elected to Dublin City Council in 2009 at the age of 25, becoming the first Fine Gael representative in the north inner city in more than two decades. He has retained his seat in each election since, topping the poll last year. READ MORE In his year ahead as Lord Mayor he said he wanted to 'shine a light on the challenges facing the city, but I also hope to bring people together in order to come forward with solutions to those challenges'. Capitalising on the renewed focus on the north inner city through the recent Dublin City Taskforce report, Mr McAdam said he would be concentrating on the reuse of vacant and derelict buildings, using the compulsory purchase process where building owners were 'squandering' the city's resources by leaving properties to decay. He also said he wanted to see the council develop 'vacancy maps' to identify the greatest opportunities for the reuse of buildings. The implementation of the council's sports plan was also vital to the development of the city, he said. 'I think given the challenges we have in the city in terms of integration and inclusion sport can be the great unifier.' He said he wanted to create better opportunities for people with disabilities 'in politics and business and entrepreneurship' and for young people to have a greater voice in shaping the city, with the potential for youth representation on the council's strategic policy committees. To drive forward these aims he plans to establish the 'Lord Mayor's Commission on Dublin 2050', he said. 'I want to utilise the strategy that's been adopted through the city-centre taskforce to put together a long-term vision in terms of how we want the city centre to feel and to look by 2050,' he said. 'I think it's an appropriate time as we come to the end of the first quarter of the century that we look to what we want to achieve for the city centre by the middle point of the 21st century.' In a more immediate time frame, by the end of this term he wanted to see a statue in O'Connell Street to commemorate the 'women of the revolution' who were instrumental in securing Ireland's independence. 'Engineers are finalising a number of options at the moment, but I would love to see it in front of GPO,' he said. Mr McAdam succeeds Emma Blain, who took over from James Geoghegan last December following his election to the Dáil.
Irish Times
25-06-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Lorry driver saves man from burning building in Dublin by parking under window
A lorry driver on his daily delivery round in Dublin saved a man from a burning building on Granby Row in Dublin's north inner city on Monday morning. A video posted to social media shows Tomasz Zareba, who delivers groceries for the Eurospar chain, parking his lorry outside the burning building, allowing a man to jump from a window to land on the vehicle. Mr Zareba told The Irish Times that he 'thought it would be much safer for him to jump on the lorry instead of the footpath'. The driver had already seen someone jump from the building before parking his lorry beside the window. READ MORE 'One guy was lying on the footpath. He had blood on his face, and I think he might have broken both his legs when he jumped from the building,' he said. He then saw another man 'screaming from the window'. Tomasz Zareba: 'It would be much safer for him to jump on the lorry instead of the footpath' 'He didn't know what he was supposed to do because he had flames behind him, and the long drop below him,' said Mr Zareba. 'I reversed the lorry as close as I safely could to the window and the other lads from the footpath told him to jump on the roof of the lorry. 'He was okay, I think. I asked him how many people were in the building, but he didn't know because he was in shock.' The lorry driver waited at the scene 'in case maybe somebody else would need to jump from the window'. Once Dublin Fire Brigade arrived, Mr Zareba left the scene and continued his deliveries for the day. Footage posted online captured a truck driver saving a man from a burning building on Granby Row in Dublin's north inner city yesterday Gardaí assisted emergency services at the scene at around 8.15am. Six fire engines attended the scene of the fire. Seven people were treated at the scene, and three were hospitalised. Mr Zareba is originally from Poland and has been driving a lorry in Ireland since 1998. The cause of the fire is not yet known. Dublin Fire Brigade and gardaí at the scene of a fire on Granby Road, Dublin 1. Photograph: Sam Boal/Collins Photos
BreakingNews.ie
17-06-2025
- General
- BreakingNews.ie
Dublin City Council vows to end waste collection via plastic bag in next two years
Dublin City Council has vowed to end collection via plastic bin bags over the next 18 months to two years. Although the vast majority of households use bins to collect their waste, some parts of the inner city continue to use plastic bags. Advertisement The situation arises because many of the small terraced houses and apartments in the area lack sufficient room for bins. As a result, they have been exempted from the requirement to use them. This week, Irish Business Against Litter revealed that Dublin's north inner city is the most littered area nationwide. This has been attributed to the continued use of plastic bags for the collection of rubbish. Dublin City Council spokesperson, Derek Kelly, told Newstalk Breakfast on Tuesday that all cities struggle with littering. 'It's not just the north inner city, there are other areas and other areas of the country that have similar issues,' he said. Advertisement 'What we need to be conscious of is, the public have to do their part too. 'The city council is putting significant resources into trying to improve the visual amenity of the city and tackle littering. 'We've recruited over 100 additional staff in the last 12 months to improve our operations. 'We're investing significant sums in a new, modern fleet which helps us wash and scrub over 27km a week of our city pavements - so, when people come into work in the morning, the city is as clean as it can be.' Advertisement Mr Kelly indicated that the city council does 'have a plan' to end the of plastic bags. However, he stressed it was not an 'easy task'. 'We are just ready to go on a pilot area off Grafton Street - there are 90 streets around Grafton Street,' he said. 'We have all the arrangements in place; we have two waste compactors that we placed at two strategic locations in that area. 'Customers of the private collectors will have a number of options for disposing of their waste. 'We do intend to move that throughout the city; we have an equally sized area in the north city, covering Henry Street, O'Connell Street, Abbey Street and the surrounds. 'Then we'll be moving further out into the suburbs and urban villages.' Mr Kelly insisted that the days of plastic bags on the streets of Dublin are coming to an end. 'We're all in agreement that the days of plastic bag presentation are ending,' he said. 'And it will be gone within the next 18 to 24 months.'
