Time to reopen Balbriggan’s council help desk, councillors say

Overlooking St George’s Square in Balbriggan’s Town Hall sit the former local offices of Fingal County Council.

On the second floor above the library, the offices were in two rooms, both of which are now vacant.

They were active up until early 2020, with the council running a help desk out of them, said Sinn Féin Councillor Malachy Quinn on Monday. “It was manned by two women that were locals and would have had a community input.”

These offices were a handy community resource, not just for residents in Balbriggan, but also in neighbouring towns and villages, like Skerries, Rush, Lusk and Loughshinny, he says.

“You could go up whether that be for the maintenance of council houses or checking your location on the housing list, even reporting a broken footpath,” he says.

Now, post-pandemic, those offices have yet to be reopened, Quinn says.

The help desk’s loss has particularly hit elderly residents in the town, because now the only way to engage with the council in-person is at their offices in Swords and Blanchardstown, he says – neither of which is easy to reach by public transport.

On Saturday, Quinn launched a petition calling for the help desk to be reinstated.

Fingal County Council didn’t say whether it would do that. A council spokesperson on Tuesday evening said that its corporate services are carrying out a review of its customer care unit.

Losing face-to-face meetings

Originally, the second-floor offices were used by the Balbriggan Town Council, says local Labour Councillor Brendan Ryan.

But the town council closed with the 2014 Local Government Reform Act.

For a while, Fingal County Council provided some services to Balbriggan out of the offices, but those were phased out, Ryan says. “To some degree, that coincided with Covid. But it had slightly stopped before then.”

Locals expected the help desk to be reopened, says Áine O’Beirne, secretary of Balbriggan Community Council. “But it never was.”

Because Balbriggan is in the outer reaches of Fingal, it was a vital service when people needed to sign forms or speak with an official face-to-face, she says.

By road, Fingal County Council’s County Hall in Swords is about 18 km south of the town and its civic offices in Blanchardstown are 37 km away.

The offices in Blanchardstown deal with housing issues, Ryan says. “And even if you go to Swords, as an alternative, you can’t speak to housing people. They will take the stuff in and stamp it, but that can get lost in the transition, and I’m aware that it has in the past.”

Getting out to either is difficult enough if you drive, O’Beirne says. “And if you don’t drive, there is a very indirect public transport route, which is very difficult for people, especially on limited incomes, limited mobility or if they are elderly.”

Filling the vacancy

The help desk gave the council a human face when people came in to make inquiries, says Quinn, the Sinn Féin councillor. “That’s what we want to bring back. We’re not looking to change the world. We just want the services that were in place prior to Covid to be brought back.”

At most, Fingal County Council would have to hire two more people, he says.

The offices are there, unused, he says. “The council are chasing vacant properties across the county, and there is a vacant office that the council should be using.”

A spokesperson for Fingal County Council said on Tuesday that its corporate services are conducting a detailed review of the customer care unit and all of the services that it provides.

Councillor Ryan received a similar response back in September 2023, when he asked the council’s chief executive to review the closure of the offices, he says.

“I take it that the review has gone on quite long, longer than I hoped for, but I wouldn’t second guess that it’s not happening,” he said.

It just needs to be brought to a conclusion, he says. “And that needs to be a part of it, because the need is obvious.”