€300k Have Your Say Results Announced

Twelve community-led projects have been selected by the public to be funded in the Rathfarnham Templeogue Electoral Area through South Dublin County Council’s landmark €300k Have Your Say participatory budgeting initiative.

Details of all twelve winning projects were announced on Thursday 30 June and project updates will be given on each on www.sdcc.ie/haveyoursay.

Work will begin on the projects in the second half of the year. Forty projects to date have been selected for funding in the Lucan, Clondalkin, Firhouse-Bohernabreena and Tallaght Central Electoral Areas. The Council will run the initiative in every local electoral area in the County with the next area being Tallaght South in 2023.

South Dublin County Council were the first local authority in the country to introduce participatory budgeting when the Council launched €300k Have Your Say in 2017. To date, over 13,000 people have cast their vote in €300k Have Your Say to fund a project, or projects, of their choice. 949 project ideas have been submitted to the Council for consideration with 104 being put forward to the public vote and 52 being funded.

‘€300k Have Your Say’ is a participatory budgeting initiative that has been run by South Dublin County Council since 2017. €300k Have Your Say allows residents to develop project ideas for their local area and then vote on shortlisted proposals to fund winning projects up to the value of €300,000.

The twelve projects selected for funding are:

• Nature trail in Rathfarnham Castle Park
• Fruit trees for the Rathfarnham Templeogue electoral area
• Green laneways for Rathfarnham
• Christmas lights for Templeogue Village and Rathfarnham Village
• Outdoor nature classrooms on local greens
• Bicycle pump in Templeogue Village
• Run a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) Project for children from the Traveller Community
• Drinking water stations for Rathfarnham
• Place QR code stands near Templeogue Cemetery and the nearby Old Church
• Run a poetry competition in Rathfarnham
• New seating for the Crannagh Road area
• Playground and seating for the College Drive/Fortfield Road

Speaking on announcing the results, the Mayor of South Dublin County, Councillor Emma Murphy, said, “This initiative is about enabling people in the area to have a greater voice on local priorities that matter most to them. We wanted to give people within the Rathfarnham Templeogue electoral area the opportunity to send us your ideas and then vote on what you want to see brought here. I am delighted to say that the people of this area rose to that challenge as we received the highest number of project ideas for any electoral area with 249 and we received the second-highest turnout of voters with 3,267! On behalf of the Council, I just want to thank everyone who took part this year and made it such a great success.”