Spotlight shines on local authorities during Innovation Week

Spotlight shines on local authorities during Innovation Week

The LGMA and South Dublin County Council organised a spotlight event featuring local authority innovation on November 11, streamed live from Rua Red in Tallaght, as part of Public Service Innovation Week 2021.

The event was chaired byDanny McLoughlin, Chief Executive, South Dublin County Council, with a panel including Dr. Pat Daly, Chief Executive, Limerick City and County Council and Eddie O'Loughlin, PMO Manager, LGMA.

Presentations at the event focused on innovations such as district heating, online service delivery and positive energy areas. Find out more below.

HeatNet

In partnership with City of Dublin Energy Management Agency (CODEMA), South Dublin County Council is leading a project to develop Dublin city’s first public district-heating network. Eddie Conroy, South Dublin County Council, outlined how, with partners across five EU states, the ‘HeatNet’ project will link Technological University Dublin - Tallaght Campus to the County Hall complex to form the core of a district-heating network which when operational is expected to save the Council almost 1,900 tonnes CO2 per year after 5 years.

Mycoco.ie

Local authorities offer more than 1000 diverse services to the public, many of which are provided using paper-based forms, with cheque payment, and low visibility to a customer regarding the progress of their application.

Carmel O’Hare from Monaghan County Council and Stephen Brady from Dun Laoghaire County Council discussedMyCoCo, a prototype solution which offers an online platform to provide diverse services that can be scaled up with an extension of services. In addition, the solution can be moved to a national platform to deliver services.

Lighthouse Smart City

Kieran Reeves presented onLimerick City as Irelands first “Lighthouse City” under the Horizon 2020 programme. With a total budget of €24 million, the project is attempting to develop and deploy Positive Energy Blocks and Districts, and scale these out as part of the Clean Energy Transition. At the heart of the project is that if we are to achieve the goals of climate neutrality, we must co-create this future and involve all sectors of society from the start. Kieran provided a detailed outline of the project and the outputs being developed in Limerick as part of the project and how these learnings are being used within the Urban Innovation Department of the Council to address vacancy in the historic Georgian Neighbourhood. 

You can watch back the event below.