Ringsend wins President’s Award
Sinn Féin’s Cllr. Daithí Doolan has congratulated Ringsend & District Response to Drugs on winning the prestigious Presidents’s Award. Following the announcement Cllr. Doolan said, “I am delighted that the work of this project has got this recognition. This is a wonderful achievement shared with the whole community here in Dublin’s south inner city.
“Ringsend has led from the front in tackling the causes and consequences of addiction in the community since Ringsend & District Response to Drugs was set up in 1995. This award will serve to strengthen everyone’s resolve to create a new and better future for many of our young people and their families.”

City Manager desperately attempting to keep incineration alive– Doolan
Councillor Daithí Doolan has responded angrily to the announcement that City Council Management has signed the contract for the proposed Dublin incinerator before An Bord Pleanála has published their findings.
Councillor Doolan said, “The announcement by Matt Twomey, Assistant City Manager, that the contract with Waste to Energy Ltd has been signed, flies in the face of reality. The plan is unwanted, unworkable and unviable. Dublin City Councillors voted to have the plan excluded from the City Development Plan, so the Management are working against our very own development plan. This is both unacceptable and undemocratic.”

McCartan seeks clarification from City Manager on Ballsbridge Area Plan
Fine Gael Councillor for Pembroke Councillor Paddy McCartan sought clarification from the City Manager, Mr John Tierney, on remarks that he made in the media about an aspect of the controversial Ballsbridge Area Plan.
Mr Tierney was quoted in the ‘Irish Times’ as saying that a recent decision by Dublin City Councillors not to endorse the Ballsbridge Local Area Plan did not have the effect of stopping high rise because applications would just revert to being determined under the existing development plan.
“However, the Dublin City Development Plan 2005-2011 states in Paragraph 15.6.0 that: ‘A study commissioned by Dublin City Council to examine the height of Dublin’s building height (Managing Intensification and Change: A strategy for Dublin Building Height, DEGW, 2000) identified character areas and locations within the city that would allow for large scale growth and innovation in building form,” Councillor McCartan explained.
“Ballsbridge is not listed within this study as an area suitable for high-rise development of this scale. Rather, lands to the west of Heuston Station, Spencer Dock and Grand Canal Dock are specifically identified– but nowhere does Ballsbridge feature.
“The Ballsbridge Local Area Plan was originally nick-named the ‘Knightsbridge’ plan for Dublin– but there is nothing of the scale that’s in this plan in Knightsbridge! With a current plot ratio of 5.8:1, this plan is on a par with Manhattan,” the Councillor stated.
“There are other problems too, such as the fact that only the very wealthy will be able to afford any one of these units, and the fact that there is no provision of social housing at all.”