In Donabate, Ballisk House is to go ahead as a library, councillors vote

Ballisk House is to go ahead as a library, councillors in Fingal voted on Monday evening.

This decision comes after independent Councillor Jimmy Guerin sent a notice last month to the council’s chief executive, AnnMarie Farrelly, asking the council “to proceed immediately” with the redevelopment of the former credit union in Donabate.

Guerin’s 19 May letter, co-signed by 22 other councillors, said they planned to bring a resolution under Section 140 of the Local Government Act – a rarely-used legal instrument that allows councillors to order the council to fulfill a request.

That motion was brought up at Fingal County Council’s full monthly meeting on Monday, 9 June.

All of this stems back to an effort by DP Crossroads to push for the creation of a community and arts centre on the peninsula.

In March, infighting among councillors started when DP Crossroads – a local residents group with some local councillors involved – went to court in a bid to get a cultural and youth centre for the rapidly growing town.

DP Crossroads sought a judicial review against An Bord Pleanála’s decision to grant permission to Glenveagh Living Limited for the second phase of a major housing development at Ballymastone.

Gleanveagh had, in its original planning application, concluded that the peninsula didn’t need any additional community facilities, arguing that it already had enough built, or in the pipeline.

DP Crossroads withdrew its case in April.

After the withdrawal, allowing the second phase of houses to go ahead, Farrelly offered an alternative, to measure if locals agreed with DP Crossroads about the need for a community and arts centre.

She announced in April that the council would run the RedC  poll to see if locals actually wanted the new library in Ballisk House. Or possibly a multi-functional youth centre.

This created tension on the council between the councillors involved in DP Crossroads – Labour’s Corina Johnston, Social Democrats’ Paul Mulville and Fine Gael’s Eoghan Dockrell – and others who argued that they’d already agreed several times that the future use of Ballisk House would be as a library. 

Indeed, by all appearances, the former credit union seemed well on the path to become the town’s new library, which the council purchased in March 2022. The council had said that construction was already underway in February 2025.

This new library would replace the old one, situated just 300 metres down the Donabate Road in the existing community centre, and according to a council statement in February, this would “free up significant space” for different groups on the peninsula.

Farrelly called a halt in May to the plans to run the poll to re-evaluate Ballisk House’s future, claiming the poll was only causing confusion among locals. That offer was no longer on the table, she said, at the most recent council meeting, on 9 June. “I don’t agree it’s going to deliver any dividends to the town of Donabate.”

It would just prolong the issue, she said, “and make everybody more divided”.

Guerin opened the meeting on Monday by saying that the Section 140 motion to proceed with the library went beyond being about the credit union. 

“When we adopted the position not once, twice, but on three occasions, we owe it to ourselves, and to this council and to the electorate to deliver on those plans,” he said.

It was a project listed in the March 2024 Donabate Framework Plan, Fingal’s Library Development Plan 2024 to 2029, and its capital programmes for 2024 to 2026, and for 2025 to 2027.

The councillors involved with DP Crossroads fought the motion on Monday, arguing that if the library moved to Ballisk House, the space freed up in the community centre wouldn’t be sufficient for the peninsula’s needs.

All those plans Guerin listed were advisory, not statutory, said Labour Councillor Brendan Ryan. “[Guerin’s] motion fails to reference the only statutory plan, which actually applies to the matter.”

The only statutory document is the Donabate local area plan, Ryan said, quoting from it. “There has been significant investment in fit-out by the Council to develop the [existing] library facility to a high standard with all modern facilities in place.”

Contrary to what the council believes, freeing up space in the community centre by moving the library to Ballisk House wouldn’t do much for any local groups, said Labour Councillor Corina Johnston. 

“The provision of an additional two rooms in the community centre, while welcome, will in no way meet the indoor requirements of 20,000 of a population,” she said.

Thirty-one percent of the population in Donabate is under 19 years of age, she said, “with no indoor youth service or facilities. We have youth workers with no permanent home.”

Their dramatic society hasn’t one either, or storage, she said. “When they have to put a production on, the senior citizens have to vacate the parish hall for one week.”

Fingal is reneging on its objectives in the local area plan, which sets out as an action a multifunctional arts and youth community facility, she said.

Converting Ballisk House into a library is going to be expensive, and may not be good value for money, given there is already a library in Donabate, Fine Gael Councillor Eoghan Dockrell said. “At a time when we’re told budgets are tight, should we be considering other options for the building.”

But Farrelly said the local area plan described the library’s capabilities back when it was drafted in 2016.

Ballisk House won’t be the same library as the one in the community centre, she said. It would be a My Open Library, which allows members to access services on a self-service basis during extended opening times. 

The council, on 25 April, awarded a framework contract worth up to €2 million to Bibilotheca for the design, supply, installation, commissioning and maintenance of its My Open Library Automation at libraries across the county, the first being Donabate’s.

“It will be better study facilities. More meeting rooms for young people in the library,” said Farrelly.

Once the library moves up the road, there will be space freed up in the community centre, Farrelly said. “That space will be available for multi-use, including by the youth, including for arts and other options.”

Johnston shook her head in disagreement at Farrelly’s assertion.

But Guerin’s motion was ultimately agreed by a vote of 23 to 13, with a single abstention.