The Chief Executive of Dublin City Council has apologised for what he said was an administrative oversight leading to the expected withdrawal of two proposals to rename Dublin parks, due to be voted on by Dublin City Council.
DCC Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare said that "a detailed review of the administrative missteps will now be undertaken and a report furnished to the Lord Mayor and Councillors".
The proposal to remove the name 'Herzog' from Herzog Park in Rathgar was one of the proposals.
The second was to rename Diamond Park in Dublin 1 as Terence Wheelock Park, after the 20-year-old from Summerhill who died in September 2005, weeks after he went into a coma when in garda custody.
Dublin city councillors were due to vote on a motion to rename the park in Rathgar. The proposal had been criticised by senior officials in both Israel and the US.
An agreement by members of the council's Commemorations and Naming Committee last July recommended to the full council the removal of the Herzog name from the park. There was one objection.
It also agreed that a consultation process should be undertaken to determine an appropriate new name.
Lord Mayor Ray McAdam said that the legislation pertaining to the renaming of placenames has not fully commenced and there was insufficient information contained in the report submitted for the elected members of Dublin City Council to make "an informed decision" in relation to the proposal.
The Group Leaders of Dublin City Council met yesterday to discuss the matter and Mr McAdam will address the issue at this evening's council meeting under Lord Mayor's business.
Mr Shakespeare said in a statement yesterday that the authority to change a placename is contained within Part 8 of the Local Government Act 2001.
The process involves the adoption by resolution of a proposal to substitute a new placename by the elected members, the holding of a public consultation and a secret ballot of qualified electors should a proposal be approved, he explained.
"While the provisions of the act were commenced in 2019, the regulations required to govern the process for a secret ballot are not yet in place. The report to the elected members does not take account of the correct statutory procedure and is missing information for a valid resolution to be adopted," he said.
Mr Shakespeare added that he is "proposing to withdraw the report from the agenda with a recommendation that the matter be referred back to the Commemorations and Naming Committee for consideration of the statutory procedure".
Watch: Report relating to renaming Herzog Park to be withdrawn - Lord Mayor
Mr McAdam said that he "cannot understand how this has come to light in the last, effectively 12 hours".
He also said he was "utterly frustrated" that Dublin City Council has been left in this position.
He said he understood that legal advice on this issue had been prepared for a number of departments in the council, but that legal advice had not been provided to him or to the group leaders of Dublin City Council.
"That is unacceptable, I am frustrated, I am annoyed, I have not experienced anything like this in my 17 years of Dublin City Council," Mr McAdam said.
"I do not believe this is an acceptable way to do business, we cannot have reports coming to full council that do not have sufficient information, that do not meet the legislation, nor quite frankly should reports be coming to council where there is not a procedure to implement the will of the elected members."
He said that "the Chief Executive accepts that this has not been dealt with appropriately".
He added that what had transpired was because of legal "question marks", however he said that he "personally" did not believe it was "appropriate or right to look to rename Herzog Park".
Taoiseach Micheál Martin had called for a Dublin City Council proposal to rename the park - named after Belfast-born Chaim Herzog in 1995 - to be "withdrawn in its entirety and not proceeded with".
Chaim Herzog was raised in Dublin and was the son of Ireland's first chief rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog.
He served as the sixth president of Israel between 1983 and 1993.
Mr Martin said such a move would erase the distinctive and rich contribution to Irish life of the Jewish community over many decades, including actual participation in the Irish War of Independence and the emerging State.
Watch: Taoiseach says plan to rename Dublin's Herzog Park is a 'denial of our history’
"The proposal is a denial of our history ... and will without any doubt be seen as anti-Semitic," he said.
"It is overtly divisive and wrong. Our Irish Jewish community's contribution to our country’s evolution in its many forms should always be cherished and generously acknowledged.
"This motion must be withdrawn and I will ask Dublin City Council to seriously reflect on the implications of this move."
Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan said the park was named after Mr Herzog 30 years ago to "acknowledge his connection with Ireland and the important role played by Jewish people in Dublin's history".
"Renaming the park because of the slaughter in Gaza is unfair to him and unfairly suggests Irish Jews are responsible for the appalling actions of the current Israeli Government," he said.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee reiterated her call to councillors to vote against the renaming.
Speaking on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, the minister said she felt changing the name of the park was "the wrong thing to do".
"I think that we are an inclusive society, and I think that this sends the completely wrong message here," she said.
Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty said that the move was a "community response".
"This proposal is a community response. It has had thousands of signatures, it's been a campaign that's been ongoing for a number of years," he said on the same programme.
"It has cross-party support, including support at the committee before the summer from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil representatives, including Sinn Féin and others.
"And rightly so, because this is a park that was named not many, many years ago ... And in my view, it was named wrongly. It wouldn't comply with the rules that apply to Dublin City Council at the moment."
'Shameful move'
The office of the Israeli President and son of Chaim Herzog yesterday said he is concerned by the proposal. Isaac Herzog's office said it was following reports of the move "with concern" and that removing the name would be a "shameful and disgraceful move".
United States senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham criticised the proposal, saying that "modern Ireland is a beautiful country with great scenery, but unfortunately it has become a cesspool of anti-Semitism".
"When you think it couldn't get any worse in Ireland regarding animosity toward Israel and the Jewish people, it just did," he wrote on X on Saturday.
"I don't know what the people of Dublin are trying to say, but this is what I hear: A complete turning upside down of history when it comes to the Jewish people and the state of Israel."
Last December, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of its Dublin embassy, blaming Ireland's "extreme anti-Israel policies".
"Dublin has become the capital of anti-Semitism in the world," Mr Saar claimed in a social media message yesterday.
There is no decision more accurate and just than my decision to close our embassy in Dublin, shortly after I took office as Foreign Minister.
— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) November 29, 2025
Dublin has become the capital of antisemitism in the world.
The Irish antisemitic and anti-Israeli obsession is sickening.
The Dublin… pic.twitter.com/vzkvgoYLA0
A motion regarding the name of the park was first raised in December 2024 by Labour Party councillor Fiona Connelly, who sought a report on the process that was taken in naming it.
She said she had been informed that the park's naming did not follow the correct procedures.
People Before Profit councillor Conor Reddy also raised the issue in January and sought information about the protocols for renaming the park.
'We will seek legal opinion', says Independent councillor
Independent councillor Cieran Perry was among those who originally proposed removing the name 'Herzog' from the Rathgar park.
Mr Perry decried the expected withdrawal of the proposal to remove the name Herzog from the park as "extremely disappointing".
"This process and proposal has been on the agenda for over a year and it seems very suspicious that at this very last minute, all of a sudden there is an excuse found to withdraw the items from the agenda.
"I suspect political interference," Cllr Perry said.
"We will seek legal opinion when we get details of the arguments for withdrawing the items from the agenda," he added.
Mr Perry said that the proposal was in opposition to the war in Gaza and Chaim Herzog's legacy after his roles in a Zionist paramilitary organization, the IDF and later as President of Israel.
Mr Perry rejected the accusation that the proposal to remove the name Herzog from the park's name was anti-Semitic.
As part of the proposed consultation process to find a new name Mr Perry said he would be "only too happy" to support a proposal to name the park after "a progressive Jewish person who hadn't been involved in ethnic cleansing and who had contributed to Dublin or to Ireland".
Cllr Perry earlier said: "We see it as an opportunity for a small action on behalf of the councillors and those we represent to highlight the ongoing genocide in Gaza."
Local Green Party Councillor Carolyn Moore said there has been a move away from the "politicisation of public spaces".
Cllr Moore said she thought this principal was "generally sensible" and believed that parks should be "politically neutral spaces".
She said it would be hard to imagine that the council would consider naming a park after the President of Israel or indeed of another country at the moment.
Ms Moore said the Jewish heritage of Rathgar is very clear and that is reflected in many of the street and placenames in the area.
She said that it was also important to note that when the Commemorations and Naming Committee agreed that the name 'Herzog' should be removed, they also agreed that there should be a consultation process to deliver a new name, and that the Jewish community have to be a part of that process.
