IR23 Visit Wexford Council

The students were invited to the county council chamber. The elected councilor for the County of Wexford presented the history of the relationshipbetween the towns of Dunkirk and Wexford. This is how we learned that there have been links between the two cities since the 17th century.?TheCouncilor also explained the desire of the two cities to strengthen their commercial and cultural ties through the maritime link between the two cities.?Indeed, with Brexit, the links between Ireland and the mainland became more complicated.?This was followed by a series of questions/answers to which the Councilor was happy to lend himself.

Who are our customers? The entire Population of County Wexford 163,527 in the 2022 Census, an increase of over 14,000 since the last census in 2016

What do we do? We employ over 800 people and provide public services and facitities such as Housing, Planning, Roads, Environmental Protection, Fire & Emergency Services, Libraries Housing: Local authorities are the main providers of social housing for people who cannot afford

They own a stock of accommödation and rent houses and apartments to eligible applicants. They are also responsible for maintaining the accommodation. Local authorities also enforce minimum standards in private rented accommodation.

Roads: Local authorities are responsible for improving and maintaining regional and local roads. They are also responsible for: Public parking services,  Traffic wardens, Setting speed limits on local and national roads, Maintaining street lighting, Trimming hedges and trees, Drainage, Gritting roads during very cold weather, Local authorities also have a Road Safety Officer to promote the safe use of roads in the local area

Environmental protection and animal control: Local authorities play an important role in protecting the environment including:

 Issuing licences for industrial waste disposal, air emissions

 Collecting domestic, commercial and other waste, and granting licences to private companies to collect waste

 Issuing dog licences, appointing dog wardens, providing dog shelters and taking court action against dog owners where necessary

 Issuing licences to horse owners in areas that are designated as control areas for horses

Local authorities also have a role in enforcing laws on noise pollution.

Every local authority has a chief executive (formerly called a county or city manager) who is employed to manage their local authority.  Some local authorities share a chief executive. As well as the chief executive, some councils also have deputy chief executives. The chief executive performs the executive functions of the city council, county council or city and county council. He or she supervises, co-ordinates, manages and pays the employees and officers of the council. He or she also makes contracts on behalf of the council and affixes the official seal of the council on documents. Once appointed, the chief executive will remain in office for a term of 7 years (although this can also be extended by an additional 3 years). He makes is in charge of making decisions on the running of the local authority, except those that are reserved decisions (decisions that are made by the elected councilors). These include: Granting or refusing planning permission - Allocating local authority housing - Signing contracts - Managing the staff of the local authority - The day to day running of the local authority

The visit includes a introductory talk and a large interesting conference with slides about the management of Wexford to compare with DK