Business Support

Working with retailers/businesses to optimise deliveries

The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting restrictions have understandably created numerous challenges for Dublin city’s retailers and businesses, and the City Council and the National Transport Authority are acutely aware of the needs of the city’s retailers, cafés, restaurants and bars, etc.

The overall aim of the proposed mobility measures is to enable the city to return to work, including enabling retail and leisure activities to restart and businesses to reopen, all in line with Government guidelines.

In order to achieve this, a reallocation of road space may be needed in a number of different areas to meet the new requirements to maintain social distancing and to enable the safe movement of people within the city. This may require flexibility and changes to how retailers and businesses operate their deliveries from what has been done before.

In some locations, on-street car parking and loading bays may have to be removed or relocated to allow for greater provision for pedestrians, etc. Where possible, alternative delivery locations will be provided. The option of identifying specific off-peak delivery times for goods deliveries is also to be considered. We may therefore need to look at different solutions and develop new ways to facilitate deliveries for retailers and businesses across the city.

For all requests or support relating to deliveries or additional outdoor space for queuing, please email [email protected]

Temporary Covid Outdoor Seating Permit Application

In order to help hospitality businesses function within the Covid-19 restrictions, outdoor seating may be required. In order to qualify for this scheme you must be a hospitality business such as café’s, restaurants, pubs that serve food.  The Council is open to considering these requests where the existing space is adequate or where additional space can be provided, subject to the suitability of the location.  Of necessity, these will be considered on a street by street basis as requests are made.  The conditions are explained below.

To apply for a Temporary Covid Outdoor Seating Permit, follow these steps:

Step 1:  Contact the Street Furniture Unit

Prior to formally submitting an application, the applicant should contact the Street Furniture Unit, Dublin City Council (email [email protected] ) giving details of the exact location of the proposed street furniture. Please indicate by way of sketch/measurements your proposal, to include width of footpath and any relevant public features such as lamp standards, sign posts etc. Licences will not be issued for certain streets due to inadequate footpath widths or high footfall levels

Step 2: Complete and return the application form

If you want to apply for a Temporary Covid Street Furniture Licence please use this form

Step 3: Application is processed

When processing your application, the following criteria will be considered:

• Safety of pedestrians
• Width of the footpath
• Number of pedestrians using the footpath
• Number of items of street furniture in the area
• Reports from Dublin City Council departments such as Planning, Chief Fire Office and Roads & Traffic
• Observations from An Garda Síochána
• Comments from the public

Step 4: Granting of licence.

If a licence is granted, you will need to get Public Liability Insurance for €6.5 million specifically indemnifying Dublin City Council and provide evidence of having done so.

Every licence is issued subject to the General Conditions set out in the Application Form. In addition, specific conditions may be applied in respect of a particular licence.