Opening of Kilbarrack United Astro Turf.

I was delighted to be invited to the Official Opening of Kilbarrack United Astro Turf. It is an amazing pitch for the community of Kilbarrack !!

Great to attend it with my Grandfather one of the founders of the club and my Father. Being able to listen to his great stories about getting the grass pitch on this site in the 1970's.

Well done to the committee of the club that has put in Trojan work to make this happen over the last few years !

Appointment of Peace Commissioner for Dublin.

I was delighted to be appointed as a Peace Commissioner for Dublin and surrounding counties by the Minister of Justice & Equality last week.

The powers and duties of Peace Commissioners consist primarily of taking statutory declarations, witnessing signatures on documents of required by various authorities and signing certificates and orders under various Acts.

If I can be of any assistance locally to sign/witness documents please get in touch.

Dublin City Council's Team Dublin Clean-Up Edenmore

Great day today for Dublin City Council's Team Dublin Clean-Up with Edenmore Residents Association and all the team from St.Malachy's Football Club.

 Across the City, many groups and residents association joined with Dublin City Council to clean their local communities on Good Friday. This is the second with a bigger take up this year !!

Great Crowd for the support of Dublin Fire Brigade today at Kilbarrack Fire Station. I was delighted to attend and show my support for them in our area.

I would urge Dublin City Council's Chief Executive Owen Keegan to abandon plans to review the Dublin Fire Brigades ambulance service. If ain't broken, don't fix it !! #SupportDFB

Graffiti Removed from local Dart Stations

The graffiti from over Christmas period at Raheny, Harmonstown Dart Station and minor incidents at Kilbarrack have been completely removed. Thank's to local residents and commuters that informed me. Irish Rail has informed me that all has been removed now. I would like to thank them for their quick response for dealing with this matter.

If you have any other issue's local that you would like me to raise on your behalf please get in touch with me and I will work to resolve these for you.

Campaign for Mortgage Fairness

There are at least 300,000 households who are on standard variable rate mortgages. These families have benefitted least from the current low interest rate environment in Europe. For a typical €200,000 mortgage, a standard variable rate customer will pay 2% more in interest which equates to approximately €4,000 a year more than a comparable borrower in Northern Ireland and other European countries. Fianna Fáil has been to the forefront of the campaign to end the rip-off of variable rate mortgage customers.

 Our Central Bank (Variable Rate Mortgages) Bill 2015 will deal with this comprehensively:

The legislation we are proposing is balanced between the obvious need for banks to be profitable and the rights of consumers to be treated fairly. The Central Bank would be given responsibility for monitoring the level of competition in the mortgage market and the fairness of rates charged

Crime & Anti-Social Behaviour 

Burglaries in our area have been been on increase over past year with 20% increase year since 2014 with 2,393 reported incidents. End of year totals for property crime were:

Coolock: 2013 (3,216); 2014 (3,019); detection rate (21 per cent) 

 Raheny: 2013 (2,053); 2014 (2,066); detection rate (15 per cent)                                             

The plan for 300 new Garda recruits is not enough to combat crime and further need for more Gardaí in our community. 

 Anti-Social behaviour has also been an issue to the local parishes of Edenmore and having issues of the playground with damage to the local school and resident homes also damage to the local football pitches which has made them unplayable. Clongriffin has also had problems within Father Collins Park. I've Highlighted these issues and brought it to the attend of An Garda Síochána.