Donabate

Paying Household Charge at Council Offices

According to the Household Charge website – people who don’t want to register or pay online should be able to get registration forms and make payments at their local County Council or City Council offices.

See more here about the new Household Charge which is payable by all home owners from Jan 2012.

We did a quick survey of most of the County Council and City Council websites on January 6th to see if they were providing any  information about the Household Charge.

We checked the council websites for  Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork,  Donegal, South County  Dublin, Dublin City , Fingal , County Galway, Galway City Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary,  Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow.
Some sites had no information about the Household Charge at all – Carlow , North Tipp, Offaly and Monaghan did not mention it -or if they did it was well hidden!

The majority of the Council websites had just a  link direct to the Household Charge website but no other info or mention of payment or forms being available.

Two  Councils  had a small bit of information about the charge and a link to the Householdcharge website . (Limerick County and Killarney).
Only three sites also had links to downloadable forms – Westmeath, Wicklow and Longford.

The only council that provided any useful information and confirmed that they were issuing forms and accepting payments was Fingal County Council.
Their website informs users that Household charge registration forms are available at all  Fingal County Council cash offices and reception desks in Swords & Blanchardstown, at all Fingal Libraries and at Citizens Information Centres. They also state that Registration forms can be returned  and payments can be made through Fingal County Council cash offices at Grove Rd, Blanchardstown or County Hall, Swords from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday. Completed forms will be forwarded by the Council to the Household Charge payment office. They even have  staff in a  Household Charge Team available on  01 890 6254

Well done Fingal County Council – !

Update Jan 9th - Dublin City Council now have information about accepting payments  – they state on their site that anyone who wants to pay Household Charge to Dublin City Council should go to :  Customer Services Centre ,Ground Floor Block 3 Civic Offices.

Cavan have added some information that Household Charge Payments will be accepted at the Rates office, Courthouse, Cavan.

Galway County Council now say that forms can be collected  from  Galway County Council, Aras an Chontae, Prospect Hill, Galway.  Payments of Household Charge can be made bBy calling to your Local Authority office (By credit card/laser/cheque/bankdraft / or Cash)

Wexford County Council have confirmed that cash will be accepted in any of the following Wexford Local Authority Offices and together with your completed registration form will be forwarded to the Central Processing Unit in Dublin.

- Wexford County Council, Carricklawn, Wexford.

- Wexford Borough Council, Spawell Road, Wexford.

- New Ross Town Council, The Tholsel, New Ross

- Enniscorthy Town Council, Market Square, Enniscorthy.

- Gorey District Office, Civic Square, Gorey.

Dublin Locations of Speed Cameras

Dublin City Speed Cameras

Mobile speed cameras are being introduced in Dublin and nationwide to try and  reduce the incidence of fatal and serious injuries and improve road safety.

An Garda Síochána, in conjunction with the National Roads Authority have identified secctions of road  where a significant proportion of accidents occurred due to speeding.

These are the “speed enforcement zones” within Dublin that may be  be monitored by the new  GoSafe mobile camera vans or by Garda

Here is map from Garda.ie showing the roads in Dublin where the private contractor GoSafe will be monitoring with mobile speed cameras in vans. (Shown in Red – Zoom in for better view)

View Larger Map

Bray is losing it’s Religion

Bray has 7.77% of it’s population who stated they had no religion in the 2006 census. This is the highest out of all Irish towns (with pop. over 5000)
In Ireland as a whole  4.39% of the population stated they had no religious faith.

Top Ten Towns in Ireland (pop over 5000) for people with no religion
Bray  7.77%
Maynooth  7.69%
Greystones  7.62%
Galway City  7.48%
Greater Dublin Area  7.01%
Skerries  6.23%
Donabate  6.02%
Lusk  5.71%
Malahide   5.62%
Swords   5.61%

Top Ten Towns for Home Ownership

Owner Occupiers
In Ireland just over 28% of all housing is rented – either from Private landlords or local Authorities. Seventy two percent of homes ore owned. This is similar to 2004 figures from the UK of 30% of rented dwellings. According to figures from the Irish 2006 census – for towns with populations over 1500 – the town in Ireland with the largest percentage of homeowners is Portmarnock.
Portmarnock has 80.34% of housing units occupied by the owner.Top Ten towns for percentage of Home ownership in Ireland:
Portmarnock 80.33 %
Malahide 78.05
Enniskerry 77.71
Leixlip 76.1
Celbridge 75.86
Dunboyne 75.49
Ratoath 74.78
Donabate 74.12
Annacotty 73.07
Stamullen 72.39

Oranmore people best educated in Ireland?

 Oranmore has the best-educated residents in Ireland. Analysing figures from the 2006 census released yesterday – reveals that Oranmore in Co Galway has the highest percentage of graduates living there.
38.35% have a degree or higher and 53.3% of Oranmore residents who have completed their education – have a 3^rd level qualification. The next best educated town is Annacotty – with  52.66%  having completed third level and  37.17% obtaining a degree or higher.

Top Ten Best Educated Towns Overall:

Oranmore
Malahide
Annacotty
Ballina (North Tipperary)
Greystones
Maynooth
Donabate
Portmarnock
Kinsealy-Drinan
Sallins
Galway City

Biggest Broadband Uptake in Ireland

Malahide has the highest broadband uptake rate in Ireland.
The percentage of households in Malahide with broadband internet access is the highest of all large towns in Ireland – at 46.34%. Malahide also has the second highest rate of PC ownership – at 78.05% of households owning at least one personal computer. (Portmarnock is top at 80.33%).
Broadband uptake varies enourmously across Ireland – the two main factors influencing uptake would be availability and also economic status.
Portmarnock, Leixlip, Dunboyne, Celbridge, Greystones, Donabate, Skerries, Annacotty, Naas, Ratoath, Rathcoole and Maynooth all have broadband uptake of more than 33% of households.
The uptake figure nationally is 19.98%.
Some towns have a broadband uptake as low as 3.2% (Castlebridge).
Other towns with low broadband uptake are Clogherhead, Ballyjamesduff, Bunclody/Carrickduff, Stamullen , Kilcoole, Ballyhaunis – all with less than 10% of households with a broadband connection.

High Fertility in Ratoath

Most Children in Ratoath
Ratoath has the largest percentage of residents aged under 15 .
According to the most recent Irish census of 2006,   32% of the population of the town of Ratoath are aged 0 to 14. This is higher than any other town in Ireland with over 1500 residents.
All the following Irish  towns have over 25% of their population under 15 :  Donabate, Prosperous, Dunboyne, Sallins, Dunshaughlin, Tower, Stamullen, Ballina (North Tipperary), Kinnegad, Clogherhead, Enniskerry, Castlebridge, Rathangan, Carrigaline, Enfield. Many of these are in the Dublin commuter area.
The overall percentage of the population in Ireland aged under 15 is 20.39%.

Towns dependent on Construction

Construction Workers in Ireland

The building and construction sector accounts for 8.69% of all the employment in Ireland – according to responses in the 2006 Census.

Some towns depend much more on construction for jobs than others – and could be harder hit if the slowdown in house building continues.

Gort – in Galway has a massive 23% of it’s workforce employed in building – almost one quarter of all jobs in the town.

These are the top ten towns (with populations over 1500) for construction-based work.

Gort  23.27%

Kanturk   18.64%

Ballaghaderreen 17.95 %

Carndonagh  17.59%

Dunmanway 16.66 %

Killorglin   16.46%

Enniscorthy 15.4%

Carrick-on-Suir  15%

Duleek  14.95%

Athboy 14.8%

The town with the least people occupied in the building industry is  Annacotty – with just 3.16% of the workforce employed in the sector.

The towns of Malahide , Donabate , Portmarnock,  Kinsealy-Drinan and Shannon all had less than 5% of their workforce in the building trade.

All figures calculated from the 2006 Census – taken in May 2006