Comhairle na nÓg

Dublin City Comhairle is the largest with 63 representatives equating that of the 63 Dublin City councillors that sit in City Hall. Comhairle Na nÓg provides young people with the space to voice their opinion on issues they might be facing in their area or everyday life. All discussions in Comhairle are youth led and opens the door for young people to meet with decision makers and people from organisations that work to create a better community to make sure that the youth’s opinions are taken into account when decisions are made that affect them.

In 2026, Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg will focus on Child Poverty - working to raise awareness, challenge inequality and advocate for meaningful change. Our members will explore the root causes and lived experiences of child poverty and identify actions that can make a real difference. Together, we aim to help build a city where no child is left behind and every young person has the opportunity to thrive, regardless of background or circumstance.

In April 2025 Dublin Castle was buzzing with energy and ideas as more than 400 young people from all 31 Comhairlí came together on the 15th April for the Comhairle na nÓg National Showcase 2025. Hosted by presenter and podcaster Fionnuala Jones, the event brought together Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Minister Norma Foley, members of Government and senior officials to hear directly from young people about the issues that matter most to them. The Showcase, which takes place every two years, is organised by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. It’s a chance for each Comhairle to share the work they’ve done over the past two years and to connect face-to-face with decision-makers on local and national issues.

In August 2025 5 delegates from Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg were selected to represent Ireland on the world stage in Tokyo, meeting with young people from 4 other citys around the world; Surabaya, Indonesia, Taipei, Taiwan, Brussels, Belgium, and Tokyo. All to discuss their vision on creating a child friendly city, sharing ideas and initiatives their respective organisations have took to try and work towards their vision of a child friendly city. the month following the 5 delegates, Evie, Calvin, Tai, Daniella and Lauren Received a commendation from Lord Mayor Ray McAdams for their contribution and representation of Dublin City and Ireland during their trip.

As part of Culture Night Dublin, Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg (partnered with the Local Authority Integration Team) hosted an evening at Hill Street Family Resource Centre, all about Diversity, Inclusion, and spreading Kindness. Aligned with this year’s theme, "Inclusive & Diversity: Making a Way for Kindness," the event highlighted the importance of creating spaces where all individuals feel valued and connected. Culture Night is a moment to bring together communities, celebrate creativity, and promote cultural understanding – and we are grateful to all who contributed to making this event a success.

In November of 2025 3 delegates from Dublin City Comhairle nannÓg took part in Seanad na nÓg to discuss 60 youth delegates from Comhairle na nÓg and other youth organisations across Ireland gathered in Leinster House for Seanad na nÓg 2025, which is the second sitting of the youth Seanad since its inaugural session in 2022.

The event was co-chaired by Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann, Senator Mark Daly, and Christian from Kerry Comhairle na nÓg. Delegates came together to discuss their priorities for the Government to consider in advance of Ireland’s EU Presidency in 2026.

Throughout the day, young people presented on key subjects they identified as most important for our shared future within the EU. These included the following topics:

• Peace and Security: exploring peace and security in a digital world and the growing threat of deepfakes
• Climate Action: promoting inclusive, cooperative approaches to tackling the climate crisis
• Education & Youth: increasing training for guidance counsellors, enhancing mental health supports in schools, and improving resources for special education
• Cost of Living: examining financial pressures faced by young people and those with disabilities
• Substance Misuse: advocating for stronger early intervention and community supports for mental health and substance prevention
• Children in Care: addressing challenges within the care system and improving outcomes for children in care
• Equality: strengthening rights for all and standing with those experiencing inequality

Members of Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg including Aaron, Mason, Oisin, Elsie and Mustapha recently attended Dáil na nÓg 2026 in Leinster House, joining young delegates from across Ireland to discuss some of the key issues affecting young people today. Dáil na nÓg, Ireland’s National Youth Parliament, provides young people with an opportunity to share their experiences, opinions, and ideas directly through national discussion and debate. This year’s event focused on education, with conversations centred around student wellbeing, school stress, and the overall experience of young people within the education system.

In June 2026 Dublin City Comhairle members joined 600 other young people at the Belong-to Pride breakfast and took part in the parade afterwards where they were joined by Lord Mayor Ray McAdams and Taoiseach Michéal Martin as well as over 100,000 people taking part in the festivities in pride of the LGTBQI+ community of Dublin City. 

Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg went to the Cavan centre on Saturday 6th April. The Trip was a great experience for the members and a 2nd group trip has been planned for June.

Each year we focus on a working topic that is voted for by the young people who attend our annual meeting in the Round Room of the Mansion House. Young people aged 12-17years can attend our AGM, they must attend school /a youth organisation or live in the Dublin City Council Area. 

• We have 47 members aged 12-17years.
• Members are elected for a two year term.
• We are youth lead.
• We focus on a different working topic annually.
• We use our platform to represent the voices of young people.
• We are given the opportunity to be involved in the development of local services and policies.

Sustainable Development Goals Workshop

Members of Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg took part in the Young Social Innovators Championing the SDGs Workshop on Saturday 20th April. Thanks to Niall from Young Social Innovators for hosting the workshop.

Comhairle Youth Conference 2023

Each year we focus on a working topic that is voted for by the young people who attend our annual meeting in the Round Room of the Mansion House. Our AGM is open to young people aged 12-17years who live or go to school / attend a youth organisations in the Dublin City Council area, you can check if you are in the Dublin City Council Area here.

Some insight into what our AGM looks like

• Our AGM is led by current Dublin City Comhairle members.
• At the AGM participants discuss topics of importance to young people.
• They vote on the Dublin City Comhairle working topic for the year ahead.
• At the AGM members provide feedback on the progress they have made over the last year.
• New members are elected onto Dublin City Comhairle. 

2023 Working Topic

Our working topic for 2023 was Period Stigma as voted in by the Dublin City Comhairle members at our 2022 Youth Conference.

After several meetings exploring the topic, including consulting a panel of experts, we decided that we would do an awareness campaign on social media and in schools in the Dublin City area.

We made a series of short films on the topic, delving into the shame young people can face due to their periods and how to overcome it. Our goal was to address the stigma surrounding periods and bring young people’s voices to the forefront of the issue.

Period Packs

As part of the awareness campaign we decided to distribute Period Packs to the schools of each Comhairle member. Each Pack contained a leaflet providing essential knowledge of periods, tampons and sanitary pads.

Social Media Launch & Visit from Tokyo Metropolitan Government

In September we held our social media awareness campaign launch in the Rotunda Room of Dublin City Hall. The event was a great success and we had delegates from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in attendance. We will continue our work with the Delegates when they visit in March 2024

2022 Working Topic:

Our working topic for 2022 was Mental Health as voted in by the Dublin City Comhairle members.

To develop our topic further we explored our initial thoughts as a group, we sought advice and guidance from various organisations such as Walk in My Shoes, Mental Health Ireland, Web wise, Pieta House, A Lust For Life & Jigsaw. 

After many meetings, conversations and planning we decided as a group to focus on the conversation in relation to mental health. We wanted to address the stigma, bring parents, young people and Teachers together to start that conversation. Our focus was on having an open conversation on Mental Health with adults and young people.

Dublin City Comhairle Let’s Talk Mental Health Workshops:

Our workshops took place on Wednesday 28th September, they were facilitated by various mental Organisations and supported by Dublin City Comhairle members.  

The first workshop focused on our schools with students and a staff member attending the workshop and the second workshop focused on our trusted adult and the importance of having the conversation on mental health.

As a group we identified the following key issues in relation to mental health services and young people.

Mental health scenarios for use in the classroom / youth organisation setting:

As a group of young people, we want to open up the conversation on mental health, so we created mental health scenarios to help aid the conversation in both the classroom and youth organisation setting. The scenarios linked below were used as part of our workshops and because they worked so well, we wanted to share them as a resource.

We hope you find them helpful!

Dublin City Comhairle Mental Health Scenarios

2021 Working Topic LGBTQIA+

As with all of our working topics our members voted to work on this topic.

So what did we decide to do! After many months of developing and researching our working topic we decided to focus on the following 3 actions.

Action 1

LGBTQIA+ Social Media Messaging  

It was important for us as young people to be allies of the LGBTQIA+ community. We wanted to show our support and we did that by using our social media Pages as a platform to educate and advocate.

Action 2

“Let’s Be Inclusive” LGBTQIA+ Pledge    

• We created the Let’s Be Inclusive pack this was distributed to various organisations and schools. The pack also contained LGBTQIA+ material e.g. bags, badges, flags and bookmarks.

The pledge lists a number of actions that we felt were important in relation to supporting LGBTQIA+ youth. Our hope is that schools would look at the actions listed and explore how they can further support LGBTQIA+ youth in the school setting. 

Action 3

Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg LGBTQIA+ Pledge.

• To adopt a Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg LGBTQIA+ Pledge.
• Our pledge incorporates actions that we as Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg will take to ensure that we are LGBTQIA+ inclusive.  

2020 Working Topic

Our 2020 working topic was Climate Action and the outcome was “Future Talks” an online youth event for young people aged 12-17years it covered everything from saving the planet to sustainable fashion and featured a Q&A session at the end. 

Speakers included Flossie Donnelly, Tara Stewart and Fridays For Future. 

You can view our Future Talks event here:

Other Initiatives

Aswell as our Future Talks event we developed some anti-waste images as part of a social media campaign:

We also focused on developing youth infographics to highlight the importance of wearing your face covering: 

2019 Working Topic

Our 2019 working topic was education and we were very proud to launch our Education resource entitled “What School Doesn’t Teach You”  developed by us for young people. The resource covers topics such as Relationships, Politics, Life Skills and education the focus of the resource is for young people aged 12-17years.

Get social with us

For updates follow us on Twitter: @DCCcomhairle  Instagram @Dublincitycomhairle

Further information on Dublin City Comhairle na nÓg contact: Christine Lyons, Dublin City Comhairle Coordinator.  Tel: 01 222 5394  E: [email protected]