No online record for some groups mentioned in emergency motion to delay cycle route

There is little or no online record of four resident groups mentioned in an emergency council motion backing the delay of the Sandymount cycle route trial.

It seems at least three of the groups were set up just to oppose the Strand Road cycle route trial and other groups have overlap in the areas covered.

The South East Area Committee motion is in the name of four councillors — Cllr James Geoghegan (FG), Cllr Dermot Lacey (Labour), Cllr Paddy McCartan (FG) and Cllr Claire O’Connor (FF).

The opposition is led by the STC group, STC stands for Serpentine Avenue, Tritonville Road, and Claremont. The group was set up to oppose the trial.

The motion by councillors also said that the STC decision on reviewing the planning of the project is supported by “SAMRA [Sandymount and Merrion Residents Association], Park Avenue residents association, Sydney Parade Avenue residents association, Gilford Road residents association, BADRA [Bath Avenue & District Residents Association], Ballsbridge residents association, Brabazon House, Sandymount Avenue residents association, Seafort Avenue residents association and Merrion Road residents association.”

A number of the groups mentioned cover overlapping areas and some of the mentioned groups have not just no social media or websites, but also no mention of any type online. Usually, even when resident associations don’t have an online presence, their name will feature in online council records.

Google searches for Park Avenue Residents Association returned nothing relevant to Park Avenue in Sandymount.

The same happened for searches for Gilford Residents Association — while there is reference to a group in Northern Ireland by that name, nothing relevant comes up in searches for that name except for linking to overlapping groups already mentioned.

With a number of searches on each name, there was also no records of a group called “Ballsbridge Residents Association” other than a council document relating to the Strand Road trial and search result relating to a group with a different name.

For “Seafort Avenue residents association” the search result similarly said “No results found for ‘Seafort Avenue residents association'”.

There was only a limited number of search returns for “Sandymount Avenue residents association” — all relating to planning objections to two housing developments. No other activity was mentioned relating to this group other than objecting to the developments. 

Responding to a request for comment this morning, Cllr Dermot Lacey said: “Park Avenue Res Group is newly formed as is Gilford, [the] other three long standing. Not unusual for Groups to be formed arising from issues emerging.”  

Asked about the name ‘Ballsbridge Residents Association’, Cllr Lacey said it has been active for decades. Asked if the name was correct as there’s no record of it online (except the one mention above), Cllr Lacey said: “Many people live in the real world… not the online one.” 

He added: “Two groups pro the trial were also only set up recently for that purpose and I nominated them to forum. I also nominated Irish Doctors for the Environment to same believing they were based in St. Vincents Hospital.”

Other councillors mentioned in the motion were also contacted this morning but have yet to respond. IrishCycle.com will be happy to update this article with their responses if any are forthcoming.


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