Monthly Archives: February 2014

Housing Adaption Grant Scheme for People with a Disability

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Please contact number below for an application form if you require adaptations to your home.

The Housing Adaptation Grant Scheme for People with a Disability, the Mobility Aids Grant Scheme and the Housing Aid for Older People Grant Scheme re-opened for new applications on 17th February 2014.

Application forms are available on-line, from the Home Grants Section at 2222195 and from the Customer Services Centre at 2222222.

Further information is also available from the Home Grants Section at 2222195. Housing and Residential Services, Home Grants Section, Block 2, Floor 2, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8

Joanne Munds, Staff Officer, Home Grants

Positive Intervention – Towards Rehab Street

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What’s the big problem with the truth and the reality of whats going on in our society and on our streets. For those who have to face this on a daily basis and deal with it on a daily basis there is an enormous down side and it can have a catastrophic impact on their own health, well being and safety. Go ask the families of those that are on our streets in active addiction how they feel about whats going on. This is about feeling and drugs block feelings. But not everybody out there who is going about their daily business in and around this activity can sedate themselves or protect themselves from what’s going on around them. This is not a vote exercise its a reality exercise. I’ve got my own family members and friends and constituents out there on them streets at this activity. This is not something that I’ve just stumbled across – i’ve been engaged in this all my life and I’m actively engaged in assisting individuals towards rehabilitation and counselling.
The Daily Mirror spoke with me for over one hour, there were many issues discussed as with any journalist they edit it down to suit the piece. What I said in my remarks is no different than what would be said in any rehabilitation institute.
Its reality. Go into any NA room or AA room and try get away with mamby pamby nonsense. The issue here is that we’re getting overwhelmed by those in addiction. Its important to note that a lot of this behaviour is not tolerated in the flats anymore, not tolerated in their primary homes any more – so why should we tolerate it on our streets. It we can’t call a spade a spade and tell the truth as we see it then we’re in deeper trouble than those in the throws of addiction.
As for safe clinics to shoot up, thats a matter for the HSE and I’ve brought it up on many occasions now. Let me say here though, that you’re always going to be dealing with street issues, no matter what you provide because what you really need to provide is residential rehabilitation centres where people can go when they are ready to deal with the issue. You can also create Streetstep where people are positively engaged in the value of 12 Step program and are encouraged to come 12 Step meetings (NA and AA).

This is all about responsibility and the responsibility for addiction is something that the addict has to step up to. There is a good old saying ‘I like you but I don’t like your addictive behaviour’.
On a personal level, I was stuck in that kind of a hell for 20 odd years of my life, I can only speak for my own experience which is no different than any of those people on the streets or in our pubs or in luxury hotel rooms who are in active addiction of alcoholism, gambling or opiates. But I ain’t no sham-carer or reactionary. I deeply care about people, human beings who are caught up in the trauma of critical addiction and I do my best to carry the message of hope and recovery where ever I go and the most effective way to deliver that is direct.
There are 10s of millions of euros every year being spent on this issue. When you boil it down, this particular heroin issue is about the socially less well-off, those that are regarded as disadvantaged. The unfortunates. For over 30 odd years the State and Agents of the State and the so called ‘community activists’ have failed entirely to deal with this issue. The people on our streets, the homeless, the addicted, are not getting any of the so called benefit, they are merely regarded as the raw material for massive revenue streams into all these so called entities and service providers. We’re not talking about hundreds of thousands of people here, we’re talking about a few hundred that have created a culture as seen in O Connell Street over the past twenty odd years. This Culture has now formed into like a social community, widely regarded as a kind of murky underworld when in actual fact its not. Although its breaking the law, what goes on on O Connell Street and on our streets is a social thing, albeit, a dangerous and detrimental one.

I’m totally committed to finding new ways to change this dynamic. Part of that change is bare faced directness, brutal honesty and absolute reality. You can no longer pedal a grandiose statement around this that nobody is doing anything. If that were the case, there’d be nobody in NA or AA and it would be hopeless.
Its down to the individuals and any individual that I’ve ever come across, caught in addiction, has a massive willingness to change but is confronted by a massive desire to use. Somewhere in between this we have to find better methods to intervene in whatever setting we find active addiction and destruction.
For those who commented on my comments in the Daily Mirror, they seem to be under some illusion that I’m coming from some other place and they’re surprised. I don’t get this. I don’t get this at all and I find it peculiar, amateurish and care-taking that they would assume that I’m on their side or support their views whatever they may be.
I’m not in the business of pseudo-outreach. I don’t live my life like that and I don’t interact like that. The situation on our streets can be changed for the better. The diabolical consequences of active addiction in people’s lives wherever they are and whatever their circumstances can also be constitutionally changed. There is a proven method for all of those who wish to avail of it. Everybody comes to it slowly. Everybody is in their own journey.

However, its equally important to give full support for those people who also suffer great trauma as a result of other people’s addictions – like family members, relations, friends, wives, husbands, workers and the general public who are confronted with it on an ever increasing daily basis in our City.
Walk into any Al Anon room or read any Al Anon literature and you’ll get my point. The more equipped, informed and educated we are around the dynamics of active addiction, the more of service we can be to those who are suffering in their active addiction. These were my points that I tried to raise and I will continue to raise and not step back from. This is not an intolerant position but a realistic approach to a merciless patient and thorough destructive disease called addiction.

I would always hope that for those in active addiction that they would be educated into taking responsibility for their addiction. What’s taking place in our streets at the moment is a reckless disregard for everybody’s health and safety. And that, as it was unacceptable in the social housing complexes, unacceptable in any of our homes, should be equally unacceptable on our streets. This is not an authoritarian approach but a humanitarian one. So when you’re down there and you see all this happening, those engaged with the business of addiction can sedate themselves from their own trauma, those who are going about their daily business, their daily work in the shops and offices throughout the city, cannot.

In conclusion, this is but one side of one scenario taking place in Dublin city. There are over 10,000 registered users of heroin in our city. Many of them take responsibility and manage this condition in a responsible way. There are those also that are on the various programs of recovery and there are the ever increasing numbers that are attending counseling and also attending various meetings around the issues of compulsion and addiction. There are also the many that we don’t see. The addiction to the internet, gambling, food etc. Ever increasing numbers of individuals get to break out from their addictions and get to live incredible lives. That’s what we’re all striving for here. The spine of that possibility is the truth and the honest truth no matter how uncomfortable.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/crime/special-investigation-how-drug-dealing-3183593

New City Council Bye-laws to Simplify Bin Collection

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                                                                                                                            27th February, 2014

New City Council Bye-Laws to simplify bin collection come into force                  

From Monday 3rd March every area of the city will have a specified day for household bin collection regardless of waste provider under new Dublin City Council Bye-Laws.

A map of the areas and the designated days for collection is available on:

http://www.dublincity.ie/Press/Documents/domesticwastecollectiondaysbyarea.pdf

The public are encouraged to check their collection day on this map.

“The fact that several waste collectors now operate in Dublin means that communities were being inconvenienced by numerous bin trucks in their area on a daily basis with resulting difficulties of footpaths blocked by bins, littering and traffic issues. These Bye Laws will ease these problems considerably”, says Hugh Coughlan of Dublin City Council’s Waste Management Services Division.

Dublin City Council’s Waste Management Services held talks with domestic waste collectors as part of the process to determine the collection days. All waste collectors are currently informing any customers who will require a change to their collection day. About 44,000 customers will see their collection day change as a result.

Ends

For further information contact:

Dublin City Council Media Relations Office T. (01) 222 2170, M. 087 740 0277

https://twitter.com/DubCityCouncil        www.facebook.com/DublinCityCouncil

www.dublincity.ie             

Note:

These arrangements follow the introduction of Dublin City Council’s Bye Laws for the Storage, Presentation and Collection of Household & Commercial Waste in July 2013 which directs waste companies to collect waste on designated days.

Designated Days do not affect commercial collections

Collections in core City Centre District for Households & Commercial Premises are on 7 day basis.

Customers can contact their individual Waste Operator with any queries.

 

Exchange, Temple Bar

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Bill Hastings

Bill Hastings, Hanover Street, Dublin

In response to all who wrote to me regarding the situation at the Exchange Space in Temple Bar, thank you for your correspondence and the commitment that you’ve all shown for the Exchange and its ideas.

However, over the past two years serious issues have arisen in the area.  The primary issue is one of anti-social behaviour.  While this anti-social behaviour issue is a general issue for Temple Bar area itself, there emerged a specific issue around Exchange and some of its users.  There also arose an issue around certain weaknesses in the management of the building that Exchange uses.  On many occasions the residents in the housing complex at Smock Alley have witnessed and experienced threatening and abusive behaviour and in the many meetings that we have had with them both on the street and also in formal meetings that were attended by all stakeholders in the area (business, Exchange and Residents) these concerns were established as fact.

Initially Exchange responded positively to better management suggestions of the space and the issues abated.  However, they quickly reemerged to the concerns of residents who clearly identified the Exchange as a main source of their concerns.  Prior to the suspension a meeting was organized to take place between Exchange staff and DCC staff and the interim CEO of Temple Bar Cultural Trust (who own the building) to work out an amicable arrangement for the continuation of Exchange’s program at another location. Below is the answer to a question that I put before the Area manager of Dublin city Council.

I would like to say that I’ve continuously supported the Exchange in their activities and also in doing my best to retain them at their present location at Exchange Street.  I have liaised with the staff there for over four years now and have been staunch.  However it became very obvious that certain things needed to change in this area and in the management and the way it was being run.  This area is a residential area and people need to live together and cooperate together and show respect. That respect and trust broke down and now it needs to be fixed.  It was suggested that the Exchange be suspended for a period of 3 months at the most recent meeting to give everybody a chance to cool off, identify the source of the problem and take it from there.

It would have been better for Exchange management to explain to their supporters what this whole situation was about rather then creating the one sided affair that was making them out to be the victims.  Its this lack of responsibility to the overall area thats at the core of the issue here.

This is all normal stuff that goes on in the everday.  Its called solutions to problems.  It is not an attack on Exchange or its values.  It is about protecting Exchange, its values and the values of the neighbourhood, the residents and the local business community as well as visitors to the area.

Councillor Mannix Flynn

Can the Manager issue a report regarding the issue of unacceptable behaviour in and around Essex Street West, Cows Lane, Smock Alley?  This report also to include what methods are being employed to ensure effective management of Exchange centre at Essex St.

 Reply:

The Dublin City Council team at Temple Bar Cultural Trust(TBCT) have met with the Exchange following on a residents, councillors, businesses and Gardai meeting arranged by South East Area Office on Jan 23.

At a meeting between the CEO of TBCT and representatives of the Exchange on January 29th 2014. The following was agreed:

1.     The Exchange is a very valuable resource for many young people and has a dedicated group of volunteers working very hard to run events and provide a centre were young people can develop and express themselves though cultural and other social activities.

2.     TBCT and its owner, Dublin City Council, have understandable concerns for the competent and secure operation of the building and have had to deal with serious complaints from residents and businesses about growing anti-social behaviour in and around Exchange Street that affects everyone in the area including the Exchange and where some former members of the Exchange may be involved.  The Exchange has worked hard to address this but cannot do so alone.

3.     In order to protect and develop this service and to distance The Exchange from this behaviour, TBCT and Dublin City Council will assist The Exchange in vacating the building starting on Saturday February 1st 2014.  This will involve TBCT taking control of the building and over the week of February 3rd 2014 helping the Exchange move their equipment and furniture out.  Events at the Exchange that have been organised and booked in advance may still take place up to February 8 2014 by agreement with TBCT.

4.     It is Dublin City Council’s and TBCT’s intention to develop a working partnership with The Exchange and to help this co-operative develop new management structures and formal engagement with statutory agencies.

5.     It is also Dublin City Council’s/TBCT’s wish that the residents and businesses of the West End of Temple Bar be given the opportunity to review the anti-social behaviour in the area without the Exchange present for at least a period of three months.

6.     TBCT will on an event by event basis allow the Exchange to use Culture Box on East Essex Street subject to availability and written agreement. Culture Box may also be used by both parties to meet and work on future plans together.

7.     All sides acknowledge that in the short term events will be cancelled and young people will be disappointed and that this is regrettable, however all concerned want to focus on long term development.

8.     A review of this agreement will take place every month on the 1st of the month or as close to as possible.  After three months the viability of re-entering the current building will be assessed.

9.     Dublin City Council will use its best offices to secure another building for The Exchange if re-entry is not viable.

Meanwhile the South East Area Office and the Dublin City Council team at TBCT will work closely with all involved and the Gardai to continue to address anti-social behaviour in this area.