One in four staff posts in Dublin City Council’s local area offices aren’t filled

About a quarter of the sanctioned staff positions in Dublin City Council’s five area offices are vacant.

The biggest gap (31 percent) is in the North West Area, show figures from 5 January released to independent Councillor John Lyons, at last week’s monthly meeting. 

That’s followed by South Central (30 percent) and Central (24 percent). Close behind is the vacancy rate in the South East Area Office (23 percent), while North Central has the lowest empty posts (9 percent).

Area offices are local hubs, from which council staff coordinate the delivery of services – from housing requests, to liaising with local community groups around events, and overseeing public domain. 

A council spokesperson said that no issues are coming up because of the fact that 87 of the 355 positions are unfilled.

“There is no indication that Council work is being delayed due to vacancies,” they said. 

“Established workforce planning structures ensure that critical roles are prioritised and that recruitment activity is aligned with operational requirements,” they said.

But Dermot Lacey, a Labour councillor for the South East Area, isn’t so convinced, he said. 

“There doesn’t seem to be a logic in that statement,” said Lacey, on the phone on Wednesday. “Are they saying that people are working overtime? Are they saying that people are doing more than they should be doing?”

Lacey also wonders what is considered critical and what isn’t.

“Are the yellow lines on Brookvale Road that took four months to be painted critical or not critical?” he says. “Is the person waiting for a wheelchair disabled bay critical?”

What about the lack of bins in Irishtown Nature Park? Lacey continued. The list of things taking far too much time is a long one, he says.

Lyons, who asked for the numbers, said the North West Area, which he represents, is being “underserved and left behind”. 

“This is shocking and even more so considering the amount of development taking place across the area – it is one of the fastest growing areas of Dublin City,” he said. “It is simply unacceptable.” 

“I am calling on the chief executive of Dublin City Council to meet myself and the rest of the Dublin North Central councillors to discuss how the executive is going to address the understaffing of the area,” he said.

Different complaints

When Anthony Connaghan, a Sinn Féin councillor for the North West Area, contacts the area office in Finglas, the response is usually fairly quick, he said.

Problems he encounters stem from the lack of direct labour on the ground, he said – to cover things like road maintenance.

“If you were to drive around the certain areas that were destroyed by the bad weather, the roads are still not repaired,” he says. “And this is going on like at least a month.”

If the council had its own crews to go out and repair these roads, even with temporary fixes, it would be a big improvement, says Connaghan.

Waste management still takes longer to deal with illegal dumping than he and his colleagues would like, he says, but there it is better than the past. “There's still an issue, but it did improve.”

Also, some roles included in the figures in Lyon’s reply have been created recently, he says. That’s why they remain unfilled, Connaghan says a council official told him.

Another issue, says independent Councillor Vincent Jackson, chair of the South Central Area Committee – where 25 of 84 positions were vacant at the start of January – is that senior staff are now double or triple jobbing.

There used to be a dedicated executive manager for the South Central Area, Jackson said on Wednesday by phone.

Today, Bernard Kelly works as executive manager for the South Central, North Central and North West areas.

“I haven't seen Bernard now in about three months because he's so busy at all the other things,” Jackson says. 

“So, you can't tell me that the areas are getting the level of attention they require when you don't have personnel on the ground with a sufficient amount of time available now,” he says.

Similarly, he says, Mick Carroll, the area manager for Finglas, is now also handling Ballyfermot.

This is Social Democrats Councillor Mary Callaghan’s second term representing the North West Area, where 23 of 52 posts were vacant in January.

The slow-down in local services since the pandemic has yet to speed up, she said on Monday by phone.

A housing application may have taken roughly eight weeks pre-pandemic, she says. Then it was maybe 12 weeks – and lately, it’s even longer. 

“There was a creep during Covid that we never caught up on, with the backlog, and then we didn't have staff,” she said.

The hiring

A big part of the problem, says Callaghan, is the time that the council’s hiring process takes. “It’s extraordinarily long.”

It becomes prohibitive, she says. Someone looking for work might apply to 10 or more places, she says.

“If the council takes four months to go through its process, I've probably already taken a job two months before I hear an offer from the council,” she says.

A council spokesperson said that the council “remains strongly committed to improving processes wherever possible, including within recruitment”.

“While efficiencies are continually explored, the duration of individual competitions can vary based on several factors, particularly the volume of applications received,” they said.

The other problem is that many people are reaching retirement age, says Callaghan.

“People are leaving, and we're not filling those posts as quickly as we need to,” she says.

Indeed, says Jackson, the independent councillor.

He has attended two events in the last few weeks in the Mansion House, celebrating council staff who were retiring.

Each time, there were more than 40 staff members being acknowledged for their contribution to the city council, he said.

A huge number of them had worked in housing, in the parks department, working as general operatives, he says. “But I don't see the competitions out there to replace them.”

Said the council spokesperson: “The HR Department maintains ongoing oversight of staffing levels, anticipated retirements, and future workforce needs.”

“Given the size and complexity of the organisation, with a broad range of grades and specialised roles, vacancies are managed through structured workforce planning frameworks to ensure continuity of service to the public,” they added.

Feljin Jose, a Green Party councillor for the Central Area, also raised a few questions relating to council staffing at last week’s monthly meeting.

Why are some positions with Dublin City Council only advertised internally, and how is the decision to advertise either internally or externally made? he asked.

Most positions in the council are advertised externally by open competition, the chief executive's written reply said.

There are a number of reasons why some positions are advertised internally, they said.

Positions in Dublin Fire Brigade are mostly filled by internal competition due to the eligibility criteria, they said.

Other positions across operational grades are traditionally filled by internal competition to provide a career path for general operative grades, they said.

 “In addition, there are some positions that are unique to the City Council and have to date been filled by internal competition,” said the response.

“The Human Resources Department is currently reviewing a number of these positions with a view to advertising by external competition.  This process is being carried out in conjunction with the relevant Trade Unions,” the reply said.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.