Agenda and minutes

Order: The minutes as amended were agreed.

Oiseen Kelly from City Architect’s gave a report on the upgrade of Councillor facilities in City Hall. She confirmed that phase 1 works on the new party rooms on the ground floor were due for completion this week. Phase 2 works on the meeting room and pods was due for completion shortly. Phase 3 which involves the installation of new Mechanical and Electrical system for the ground floor will be completed later in the year. It was confirmed that the new party rooms would be allocated to the Social Democrats and Sinn Fein.

The Members requested that the security locks on the party rooms on the upper floors be upgraded as part of the schedule of works.

Ruth will contact the Members to let them know when the rooms are available to be occupied.  

Richard Shakespeare gave an overview of the position with regards the naming of new developments and the role of the Area Committee’s.  

The Members were supportive of the Managers proposals and requested that they be circulated to all Councillors.

Order: Report Noted.

It was agreed that the City Council and Area Committee meetings will take place in the Council Chamber in hybrid format from May onwards. North Central Area and North West Area would each decide how they wished to proceed as they do not have webcasting facilities in the Area Civic Offices.

Order: Noted.   

Grainne Kelly informed the Members that a report on the Twinning process and criteria would be brought to the next meeting of the Protocol Committee and that twinning with Kyiv could be reviewed in the context of that report.

The Members acknowledged that the desire to twin with Kyiv was primarily to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people and given the current circumstances that the practical implementation would be a long term process.

Order: Noted.   

Order: Request Agreed.

The Manager informed the Members that the error in the calculation of the expenses came about due to the misinterpretation of a Department of Local Government circular which was issued in 2018. She apologised for the error and assured Members that the new system of expenses had been rigorously reviewed and would be audited at the end of the year to ensure compliance with the regulations.

Following a discussion the Members requested that the Manager write to the Head of Finance to express their disappointment and frustration over the fact that the administrative error which led to the overpayment had occurred in 2018, yet it was not detected until the end of 2021, despite annual audits by the Local Government Auditor in 2019 and 2020. They felt that had the error been detected earlier the negative impact on the elected Members would have been greatly reduced. They requested that the matter be raised with the Local Government Auditor.

Order: Noted.

The Members declined the request from this private company to present to the Members on this issue.

Order: Noted.

The Members expressed their appreciation for all those that worked on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Festival which had passed off very successfully. 

Cllr. Heney requested that the presentation on Human Trafficking given to the Dublin City Joint policing Committee by An Garda Siochána should also be made to the full City Council. The Lord Mayor agreed to consider the request and discuss with Group Leaders.

Cllr. Ó Muirí noted the search functionality on the Modern Gov application was not adequate and that is was difficult to retrieve reports on specific items such as Part 8 applications. The Manager agreed to review the issue and report back to the Committee.

Cllr. Flynn requested that a report be brought before the Committee on DCC IT security and the measures in place to protect the IT systems and infrastructure.

Order: Noted.

Order: The date of the next meeting was agreed for 28^th April 2022.