Mr. Martin Lydon, Director of Services gave an update on current services in his Directorate:

Housing:  HAP, homelessness and travellers accommodation are considered emergency services in emergency situations dealing with repairs, anti-social behavior and allocations to houses. Regular meetings with the HSE to deal with vulnerable groups who may be at risk and where we may need to make accommodation available and where needed they have been made available. The mortgage payment break was launched by the government and was launched online by the Cathaoirleach on 17^th April and advertised on social media.

Planning: The only emergency services to relate to planning are the acceptance and validation of planning files.  Since the 29th of March we received 24 applications but the clock in relation to those applications has stopped. The Minister signed an Order which stated that following the emergency measures planning matters had been extended and applied up to and including the 9th of May i.e. in relation to any planning application received after the 21st of February, 42 days are added to the timeline involved in relation to that any planning application.  This timeline could be extended if the lockdown period is extended.

The pre-draft consultation stage for the Roscommon County Development Plan, the issues paper, was launched on the 27th of March and because of because of the emergency legislation an additional 42 days will also apply. We are undertaking pre-planning meetings over the phone and hope to move to Microsoft teams in the near future. It is important to note that there have been a number of calls about inspecting files. File received prior to 21st February can be inspected on line. Applications since then will be madeavailable online but people should not panic in relation to inspecting files because of the 42 day period - there will be the opportunity for the public to make any submissions they should wish to do and it is important to get the message to the public. 

ICT: IT services of being deemed to be emergency services.  132 of our staff are working remotely with IT equipment and thanks to the library service and the LEADER company who made additional computers available.

IT section has worked closely with the C&E Department to set up a case management system and mapping app for the community response system which was useful to everybody.

ICT has also set up a remote customer service programme which allows people to working from home deal with customer service issues as customers who ring the main phone number are dealt with.

Finance: The emergency services in finance are in relation to procurement, payments, receipts, receipting income and analysing the budget.  All postal motor tax applications are fully up to date. Payments of over €7 million euro have been made since the emergency which is good to get money into the real economy.  Post is in relation to customers rent accounts and rate accounts are fully up today lastly.

Tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock an online form for ratepayers is being launched that will allow rate payers to inform us formally if their business is fully or partially closed.  This will be very useful information for us so that we can see the impact of COVID-19 not only on the ratepayers of Roscommon County Council but a potential impact on future service delivery. This is part of our digital transformation programme and all information will be treated in a private and confidential manner.