Councillor Emer Costello November 2007
To ask the manager report on what progress has been made to move the horsefair from Smithfield Plaza, if he will ensure that the Square is washed down fully after the horsefair and if he will ensure that all of the streets in the vicinity are cleaned and swept on the day of the horsefair
Reply
It is our legal advice that we would not be successful were we to seek a court order by way of injunction or otherwise to temporarily discontinue or suspend the Horse Fair @ Smithfield until an alternative site is available. This is because we cannot extinguish the "market right" at Smithfield under the particular legislation unless we find alternative facilities which are reasonably proximate to those already there. Similarly there is no scope at this time to close it under Health & Safety Regulations.
Dublin City Council is actively pursuing an alternative location in the North West Area of the City and we are making good progress on this. The difficulty with this is any new site will have to be compliant with Health & Safety Regulations, Department of Agriculture Regulations and Traffic Management issues. In other words this will not happen overnight.
Dublin City Council is not involved in the management of the Horse Fair from an event management perspective, as we believe it is impossible within the meaning of event management planning to regulate the Fair at its current location. It is not clear to us exactly who “runs” it.
However in order to assist the DSPCA in the good work it does at the fair we gave them a grant of €7000 this year. In conclusion we have put in place a process to vastly improve the street cleaning following any Horse Fairs and we hope that this will improve the overall situation in the area.
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