Dublin councillor launches High Court challenge against Minister for Housing
People Before Profit Councillor Conor Reddy has initiated High Court proceedings against the Minister for Housing.
Papers to initiative a judicial review against Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage of Ireland James Browne have been lodged. Cllr Reddy is challenging the Minister over his failure to introduce regulations which allow councils to legally rename public places.
The legislative gap blocked Dublin City Council from progressing two major renaming proposals last December. The proposal to rename Diamond Park in Dublin 1 as Terence Wheelock Memorial Diamond Park , as well as the divisive proposal to remove Chaim Herzog’s name from Herzog Park in Rathgar .
Along with Cllr Reddy, Cllrs Cieran Perry (Ind), Vincent Jackson (Ind), Ciarán Ó Meachair (SF) and Micheál Mac Donncha (SF) are co-applicants. The case concerns the introduction of regulations required under Part 18 of the Local Government Act 2001. Although the relevant section of the Act commenced in 2019, the regulations needed to hold local ballots have still not been introduced.
Cllr Reddy believes “this case is about local democracy” and ensuring “communities have a right to shape the names and symbols in their own areas”. “Councillors have a right to use the powers given to them in law,” he said.
“The law provides for public consultation, council debate and a local ballot. The Minister and previous Ministers have signalled their intention to bring forward the regulations needed for those ballots to happen, but seven years on, it still has not happened.
“So we have a law that exists on paper, but which communities are blocked from using in practice. This is not acceptable.”
The two renaming proposals that came before the council last December were deferred and saw widespread media coverage . The renaming of Herzog Park was particularly controversial, as the Rathgar park was named after former Israeli president Chaim Herzog, and sparked debate related to the erasure of Irish-Jewish history, antisemitism, and the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Cllr Reddy said the Minister’s failure has directly frustrated campaigns with huge public support. “In the North Inner City, thousands of people signed petitions supporting the call to rename Diamond Park as Terence Wheelock Memorial Diamond Park,” he said.
“The campaign has had huge local support in Dublin Central and across the City, it is an important part of the Wheelock family’s long fight for truth and justice for Terence. It has been supported by councillors of all parties in the Central Area and it should now proceed. It cannot be held up by bureaucratic obstacles or ministerial negligence.”
Cllr Reddy also defended the removal of Herzog’s name from the park in Rathgar. He outlined his view, stating, “Dublin should not honour figures associated with the violent dispossession, ethnic cleansing, war crimes or the establishment of a racist, apartheid state”.
“Dublin is a progressive city, a city with a proud anti-colonial history and a city where hundreds of thousands have mobilised for Palestine over the past three years. Having a park named after a Zionist militia leader and former president of Israel runs counter to everything we stand for. Thousands of Dubliners have supported the renaming directly, especially as the genocide in Gaza has exposed the brutality of Zionism to the world.”
This is a legal case that will have implications for councils all across the country, which Cllr Reddy described as “among the weakest in Europe”. “This is one power we do have, and we are being frustrated in exercising it by Ministers who have sat on their hands since 2019, preventing elected members from exercising their powers and blocking local communities from having their say. This has to change,” he concluded.
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