{"id":366058,"date":"2026-03-26T11:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366058\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T11:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:05:09","slug":"council-taken-to-labour-court-over-use-of-contractors-to-maintain-shamrock-rovers-pitch-amid-overwatering-investigation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366058\/","title":{"rendered":"Council taken to Labour Court over use of contractors to maintain Shamrock Rovers pitch amid overwatering investigation \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Dublin County Council<\/a> (SDCC) has been brought to the Labour Court over complaints from staff about private contractors being brought in to maintain Tallaght Stadium during an investigation into council staff being suspended for allegedly overwatering the pitch<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Irish Times reported earlier this month<\/a> that three SDCC public realm staff were suspended for allegedly overwatering the pitch during a period of heavy rain in what was one of the wettest Februarys on record. <\/p>\n

This led to Shamrock Rovers<\/a>\u2019 first home game of the season against Dundalk on February 6th being postponed due to a waterlogged pitch. <\/p>\n

Tallaght Stadium is owned by SDCC, and Shamrock Rovers \u2013 the reigning League of Ireland<\/a> champions \u2013 are the anchor tenants of the 10,500-seat ground.<\/p>\n

It is understood the club reported the alleged watering to the council after reviewing CCTV. <\/p>\n

A source familiar with the investigation said it was seeking to review the communications regarding the decision to water the pitch before the match was called off. <\/p>\n

It is understood an allegation has been made that the council staff were instructed by a non-council figure to continue watering the pitch so the game would be postponed. <\/p>\n

The suspended council staff remain on full pay but have been removed from their normal duties at Tallaght Stadium. <\/p>\n

The council has hired Sports Line Services to carry out pitch-marking services. This work included preparing the pitch for the Irish women\u2019s team\u2019s World Cup qualifier against France on March 3rd. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Firebombing of social homes in Dublin has become an \u2018epidemic\u2019, says councilOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The contractor said it was told by SDCC that its work would be for an initial six-week period.<\/p>\n

Council sources said public realm staff are unhappy that SDCC decided to pay for external contractors to carry out work previously done in-house. <\/p>\n

A Siptu spokesman confirmed a complaint alleging that the council breached the public sector pay agreement as a result of hiring the contractors.<\/p>\n

The dispute was brought to the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> on March 13th for conciliation, but this was not successful. The case has since been referred for adjudication to the Labour Court, with Siptu<\/a> representing the SDCC staff. No date has been set for this hearing.<\/p>\n

Siptu has complained that the council has failed to resolve the matter at local level and rejected a proposal to redeploy other public realm staff to work alongside the contractors hired to maintain the pitch in Tallaght Stadium.<\/p>\n

Shamrock Rovers declined to say whether it was carrying out its own investigation. <\/p>\n

SDCC said \u201cno comment\u201d when asked a series of questions. <\/p>\n

The Football Association of Ireland<\/a> has said it is reviewing a complaint received in relation to the postponement of the Shamrock Rovers v Dundalk match, which finished 1-1 when the rearranged fixture was played on February 23rd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Dublin County Council (SDCC) has been brought to the Labour Court over complaints from staff about private…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13446,61,60,11113,20167,13357,112,6465],"class_list":{"0":"post-366058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-football-association-of-ireland-fai","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-shamrock-rovers","12":"tag-siptu","13":"tag-south-dublin-county-council","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}