€440,000 to help fund community festivals

Ballyfermot and Drimnagh are set to benefit from discretionary funding of over €400,000 to go towards community events and public realm improvements throughout the year.

The Ballyfermot-Drimnagh area has €440k set aside in its discretionary funding to help fund community events, such as Halloween festivals and provide public realm improvements throughout 2026.

The funding is a significant increase on the discretionary funding that was available in 2025 for the area – €360k was the total for last year’s discretionary funding and an increase of 25 per cent on that figure was provided for the year ahead.

€230k will go towards events and festivals in the two south central Dublin suburbs this year, from summer festivals to winter wonderlands, an improvement of €53k on last year’s discretionary funding for events from the area office.

€90k has been set aside for works and upgrades that will take place throughout the year, such as the installation of three-tier planters, traffic art, intensive cleaning, environmental workshops, anti-dog fouling initiatives and clean-ups in the area following Halloween celebrations.

Precinct improvement works in housing estates and flat complexes to be carried out in Ballyfermot and Drimnagh from now until December has a pool of €75k to get into.

The final €45k of the improved discretionary fund for the two suburbs will go towards environmental improvements around the area, such as the planting of trees.

The Community and Social Development Team for Ballyfermot and Drimnagh was active last year to help connect those who wished to hold events for the year and allocated €162k from the discretionary fund throughout the year to organisers.

Over €40k supported six summer and other large festivals, with over €11k from supporting Christmas Events.

10 Halloween events in the area and Cherry Orchard Fireworks received €55k from last year’s fund via the Community and Social Development Team.

Support for other Cherry Orchard events, activities and precinct improvements last year, including the Love Cherry Orchard Fund totalled over €70k.

The area office added other financial supports to events and festivals throughout 2025.

The CSD team also identified key area projects and are progressing towards setting up Local Area Networks in Labre Park, Cherry Orchard and Bluebell, in order to better connect residents with the council and work to improve the areas in future.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.