Sir, – While noting the remarks by Cllr Daniel Dunne (Letters, November 16th) regarding the debate on the motion on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) held during the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council meeting of November 13th, it should be questioned why this debate took place at all where it eventually had over 90 minutes allocated for discussion in the context of a monthly council meeting, one of only 11 held per year, having three hours officially set aside for its agenda.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (DLR) County Council covers local concerns for a catchment area of approximately 250,000 people where the discussion on BDS, relating to issues in the Middle East, effectively relegated the possibility of topical local discussions on other issues such as housing, traffic, footpath renovations, parks and local climate change responsiveness, where contributions by councillors could have resulted in tangible local outcomes.
There were a number of local matters of considerable concern to residents I had intended to raise relating to Kilmacud and Mount Merrion in the council’s monthly management report but this item was never debated during the meeting mainly because the motion on BDS took up too much time.
Also it should be noted that Middle East motion debate was not part of the original prescribed agenda.
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As such, it jumped the queue ahead of debate on the over 50 motions raised by councillors in an extensive backlog of such motions, many of which have persisted on the council agenda for over a year without being reached by the end of typical three-hour DLR council meetings.
As I highlighted during Monday’s meeting, a proposal in one such motion I submitted for the council to honour the broadcaster Charlie Bird, who grew up in Goatstown, has remained on the agenda without a debate for one year at this point.
The council is not a forum akin to the United Nations, despite the fact that some may wish it to be, and should strive in future to concentrate on local matters pertinent to its core functions. – Yours, etc,
Cllr JOHN KENNEDY,
(Fine Gael),
Dún Laoghaire
Rathdown County
Council Offices,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.