Launch of €300K - Have your Say! Participatory Budgeting

01/03/2017

Archived item. This item is published here for historical reasons. The information below may be out of date.

Launch of €300K - Have your Say! Participatory Budgeting

South Dublin Council Council is excited to announce the launch of the €300K -Have your Say! by Mayor Guss O’ Connell in the Clarion Hotel, Liffey Valley on Tuesday 28th February 2017. Participatory Budgeting is an innovative democratic process which facilitates citizens in a local community to directly decide how to spend a portion of a public budget in their area. It gives people direct power to determine spending priorities to improve their community.

For 2017, South Dublin County Council has allocated an additional €300,000 for the pilot initiative in the Adamstown, Lucan and Palmerstown area. Residents through a combination of locally facilitated workshops and an online consultation are invited to submit their spending priorities for this budget.

Speaking at the launch Mayor O’Connell said “Participatory budgeting is about enabling people to have a greater voice on local priorities. We want to give local people the opportunity to vote on investment in their area, to shape the services they use and address the issues that are important to them in their community. I would like to encourage all citizens living in the area to get involved by submitting their ideas or voting for the projects that they feel would have the greatest impact in their locality”

Chief Executive, Daniel McLoughlin added “this initiative builds on our already significant programme of citizen engagement. We are anxious to explore this process which has been used elsewhere across the world in the interests of local democracy. While each area implements the concept differently, the fundamental rationale and basic process is the same: community members come together to brainstorm ideas, proposals are shortlisted, residents vote for their priorities and the local authority implements the projects chosen by the community”.

Throughout the month of March the initiative will be widely publicised on local and social media. Workshops will be held at the following local venues to facilitate the generation of ideas:

• Tuesday 7th March: Adamstown - St. John the Evangelist School - 7pm
• Monday 13th March: Lucan-Lucan Leisure Centre - 7pm
• Wednesday 15th March: Palmerstown - Palmerstown Community School - 6.30pm

In early April 2017 proposals having been assessed and selected, will be costed and put forward for a public vote. This vote can be submitted online through the website. There will also be a number of voting stations set up locally for people to vote in paper format, if they do not have access to the internet/computer. These locations and the date to cast your vote will be announced closer to the time.

For more information on Participatory Budgeting, visitwww.sdcc.ie/haveyoursay

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