A motion from Councillor Paddy McQuillan asking the Council to explore the possibility of installing a dog park/run in Drogheda on Council owned land resulted in something of a dogfight between Councillors and officials yesterday.
The motion was rejected by Catherine Duff, the Council’s Director of Operations, who listed several potential problems with the idea including possible injury being inflicted by aggressive dogs, the potential for the spread of disease by non-vaccinated dogs and maintenance and policing of the park.
Councillor McQuillan pointed out that dog parks, where people can let their dogs off the leash, are very popular in other parts of the country and that Fingal County Council operates nine of them.
“As the largest town in the country I think this would be a great amenity for the community” he said.
“I think the response was very insulting, are you saying that the people in Fingal look after their dogs better than the people in Drogheda? It suggests that they would be so irresponsible that they would let their dogs run around with diseases.”
He alleged that the Council did not investigate his motion and obviously didn’t speak to other local authorities about how they operated their dog parks.
“It seems that everything we bring to the Council is shot down” McQuillan grumbled, “it’s just “No you can’t have a rail at Clogherhead or no you can’t have a Changing Places facility or no, you can’t have this or that.”
“How about this for a novel idea? “Instead of just saying no to everything why can’t you say ‘that might be a good idea, let’s explore ways to make it happen’?”
At this point McQuillan was interrupted by the Director of Economic Development, infrastructure and Planning, Frank Pentony who, although there was no visible steam coming out of his ears, was obviously not best pleased.
“Everything you put forward is explored but it doesn’t always work out that that we can do it” he thundered. “We don’t have large tracts of land in Drogheda to provide a dog run.
“Many councillors raise issues about dog fouling and other issues and we’re struggling to comply with them but it is totally unfair to say that everything put forward by members is shot down it’s simply not always possible to do what people want us to do” he said.
Director of Housing and Community Services Paddy Donnelly concurred with his colleague saying it was unfair for Council officials to be criticised in this manner, “it’s just not appropriate” he said.
“Responses are considered at a management meeting before they come to Council and it’s unfair to say that Directors dismiss members’ motions in the manner suggested, that’s just not the case.”
Click her for information about off-leash dog parks around the country: https://www.woofadvisor.com/blog/off-leash-dog-parks-dublin-ireland/
