Temporary accommodation for those sleeping rough during cold weather

Over the weekend John Gormley announced a new scheme whereby persons sleeping rough in Dublin City will have temporary shelter and accommodation made available to them during cold periods of the year (Jan – April). His announcement came as a response to concerns raised by Alice Leahy of Trust that persons who currently don’t avail of accommodation at night time were particularly vulnerable during cold weather periods.
In the winter of 2005/06, a number of homeless persons died of exposure. There are about 110 people currently sleeping rough each night – many of these do not wish to fill out forms at the existing hostels or have other reasons for staying on the streets.

After meeting with Alice Leahy, John (who worked with the homeless during the late 70’s) announced that Dublin City Council would be providing a facility which would allow those sleeping rough have shelter and basic needs such as food and hot drinks during cold periods.

Gormley takes action to deal with noise pollution

I’m delighted to see that John Gormley is acting on the commitment in the Programme for Government to tackle the problem of nuisance noise. Yesterday, he announced the opening of a public consultation on the issue. Complaints about noise pollution is something that crops up regularly on the doorsteps, whether its house alarms going off for days at a time, noisy neighbours or disturbance from building works. This public consultation will be the first step in drawing up legislaiton on the issue.

Noisy neighbours is an issue that is raised with me more and more by residents in Dublin 15. The Consultation Document sets out a number of suggestions as to how this issue can be dealt with more successfully. These include giving greater powers to local authorities and to the Gardai, such as issuing on the spot fines to offenders.

House or car alarms sounding constantly is another problem, particularly in built up estates. They can cause serious disturbance, particularly if they continue to ring all day and night. The Consultation Document makes some suggestions on how this could be addressed, including giving the Gardai the power to enter a house where the alarm has been sounding for a long period of time, and disable it. Obviously, there are legal issues involved here with a Guard entering private property – these all form part of the items that will be discussed during the consultation period.

Ill publish my own submission once I’ve drawn it up. I will be calling on John to create a position of Noise Control Officer in each local authority. This was what the Green Party previously proposed in our Neighbourhood Noise Bill, 2006.

The closing date for receipt of submissions is the 31st October. I would urge anyone who is interested to write or email in their views to John in the Department of the Environment and contribute to this important debate.

Submissions should be marked “Noise Legislation Review‘ and sent, not later than 31 October, 2008, preferably by email, with “Noise Legislation Review” in the subject line, to: noiseconsultation@environ.ie

Or

Eoin Deegan
Air Quality Section
Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government
Custom House
Dublin 1