Understaffing Leaves KCC Planning Department High & Dry

Press Release, 5th March 2007

Catherine Murphy TD, (Ind) has again today harshly criticized the failure of the Department of the Environment to provide Kildare County Council with adequate staffing and resources having recently learned that staff shortages are so bad in the planning Department that staff members have been sequestered for weeks at a time from the Unauthorised Development operation to Planning Applications. 

“How are County Council officials expected to do their jobs if they’re constantly being bounced around between the various different departments.  The fact that this is happening shows just how overstretched resources are in Kildare and the Minister for the Environment simply must do something about it.”

Murphy, who has recently learned that the management of Kildare County Council have moved staff from the Unauthorised Development section to the Planning Applications section due to the volume of time-dependent work in the latter, has stated huge concern that the need to redistribute staff numbers in such a way is leading unauthorized development files being neglected for long periods of time.  On discovering this practice the North Kildare TD tabled parliamentary questions to the Minister for the Environment and will be pursuing the matter in the Dáil.

“It’s just not good enough that staff ceilings and restrictive budgets are causing such problems to Kildare County Council.  These staff shortage issues need to be addressed urgently and the only person who can facilitate that is the Minister himself, he allocates the budget, he decides on the staff ceilings, and he must step up to fix this urgent problem.

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Posted by catherinemurphy on March 13, 2007. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.