Leinster Lawn expected to be restored during summer recess 2005

What is the source Paul? Which journalist?

I’d love to take this at face value but I’ll be astonished if it happens.
My predcition is that a row will now conveniently (i.e. before works start) emerge between the Members of the Oireachtas and the unions for the staff of the Houses as to the split of the lesser number of spaces, leading to deadlock and deferral. They’ll just play “pass the parcel” with the blame for inaction.

Mind you, former Senators and TDs who enjoy the free parking when they come into the city centre to do their shopping and lobbying ought get nervous about the loss of their privilege at this stage! 😉

Welcome news if it happens.

Why would its restoration be contingent on the refurbishment of Kildare House? Does it have many parking spaces?
And how is a situation of having tens and tens and tens of parking spaces being reduced to presumably nothing going to work on a practical level, whatever about staff & union objections?

it took the british cabinet minister michael hesteltine over 10 years to remove car parking from the somerset house courtyard in central london. I believe it was civil servants in the inland revenue department that was using it and they dug their heels in and prolonged the whole process.
it has since become a beautiful public place with water fountains during the summer and an ice rink during the winter months. it was only hesteltines extremely firm resolve thst beat them.
I hope that a similar delay does not happen here in kildare house. that would be a shame.

bnc

@Graham Hickey wrote:

Welcome news if it happens.

Why would its restoration be contingent on the refurbishment of Kildare House? Does it have many parking spaces?
And how is a situation of having tens and tens and tens of parking spaces being reduced to presumably nothing going to work on a practical level, whatever about staff & union objections?

Didn’t the Dept of Finance introduce benefit in kind on car-spaces last year? If they did I’m sure the unions would be too clever to admit that their members can afford to pay BIK on the 3750 euro each space is worth per year.

I don’t say this too often but I welcome this move unreservedly

Has there been any move on this yet ??

I havent noticed any work yet…but then the Houses do take a very long summer recess (although obviously individual TDs and senators are constantly working on behalf of their constituents)

Can you imagine going for planning for a city centre office and looking for 1.4 car spaces for every worker?

Back in 2002, a practice I worked for in Dublin 2 had this on its drawing desk. I worked for a Landscape Architect – the brief was to propose a landscape deck at entry level with parking at basement level. Surprised it has taken until now to get a mention.

Where Lotts did you find the digital image of Leinster Lawn?

@Michael J. O’Brien wrote:

Where Lotts did you find the digital image of Leinster Lawn?

There’s a digital image of just about everywhere on google earth. You can download the app from here. It is brilliant. You’ll waste hours zooming all around the place! 😀

Just downloaded Google Earth. However, the sat images do not appear to be up to date – am I wrong on this?

So that’s where Government Buildings’ helipad is 🙂

The image really shows what a perfect site Govt Buildings is for security – very secure on all three sides, with just the ceremonial street facade ‘exposed’.

Also highlights how rather ridiculous the Leinster House podium is to the front – should be removed I think, not least the ubiquitous local authority concrete planters :rolleyes:

Well….the redevelopement went well, didn’t it!?

Surely something could be done about Kildare Place; what’s behind that shite wall; couldn’t it be removed?

A route through to Merrion Street would be a start. Otherwise there’s the hikes down and around by Nassau St or Stephen’s Green.

Some sort of plaze would be nice, and the museum could open the back entrance to their building.
And raze the Dept of Argiculture.

The gates were wide open the other day and there was a little stone building with sash windowss, located what seemed to be right in behind the gates but cetainly closer than Govt Buildings itself.

This fjp image shows the considerable distance between the main complex and the Kildare Place wall which is nearly half way up the facade of the Museum. Een here you can see there’s quite a clutter of structures in there:

http://fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/photos/kf/aerial/002/government-building-aerial.jpg

What a different atmosphere Kildare Place would have with these two houses as featured in the Destruction of Dublin, demolished in 1957:

McDonald describes the replacement brown brick wall has ‘hideous’ – I think it has assumed a certain appeal at this stage…
Not that it shouldn’t be knocked in the morning of course; there’s great potential for this public space that should be realised.

There was an application for planning permission in today’s Irish Times to demolish what is being referred to as a ‘shop’ at Leinster House and replace it with a new structure. Does anyone know what this is referring to? I couldn’t think of what it was. Anyway, I thought it might be on interest to some of the forum members. The details are quoted below:

Location: Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Proposed development: demolish shop at Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2, a protected structure, and construct a single storey shop within a glass pavilion. Plans and particulars are available for inspection at the OPW, Project Management Services, 51 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2. Applicant: OPW Project Management. Irish Times

Hmm thats interesting. I dont know of any “shop”, perhaps the plans refer to the remaining security hut at the Kildare Street entrance. It would make sense that this be demolished and replaced by a glass pavillion in keeping with the new entry beside it. I imagine the words “protected structure” refer to Leinster House itself.

No sign of any grass sprouting up through that carpark yet….

Well selected points Stephen

A planning condition for these works presuming that they are acceptable should be that the front lawn be re-instated prior to any other works commencing

These are good point both of you make. They seem determined to create a sleek image on the Kildare Street side whilst what should be a Lawn on the Merrion Square side remains a car-park.

Absolutely, and a timely revival of this thread, being precisely a year old. Ludicrously the title could refer to the present!
What is holding up this project?!! (aside from the obvious). Or is it just that – the obvious?

Yes the ‘shop’ more than likely refers to the 50s/60s security hut to the front. So the use of glass transforms a hut into a ‘pavilion’ does it? Well you learn something new every day…

Just on those two Georgians on Kildare Place…

…where exactly were they sited? Looking at Lotts’ picture below, and going on the description of being ‘replaced’ by the brown wall, surely they must have overlapped the facade of the much later National Museum if they once stood on this spot?

Should we clarify the title with 2001 seeing as this is the 6th year of these nasty landscaping works on the South Lawn

Was it a planning condition that the lawn be reinstated?

@Today’s Irish Times wrote:

Retention of temporary car park at Dáil gets green light

The politicians who run the Dáil complex have decided to defy the planning laws and retain a temporary car park on Leinster Lawn for the foreseeable future, writes Stephen Collins, Political Correspondent.
In the meantime they intend to explore the possibility of building a two-storey, underground car park which could also be put to commercial use.
The Oireachtas Commission decided to retain the temporary car park, which was put down on Leinster Lawn in the late 1990s to enable construction of new office accommodation, until the underground car park can be built. That will not happen for at least four years.
The decision was taken by the commission even though it noted that “the current temporary car park was in contravention of the Part IX planning process which required the lawn to be reinstated following completion of the Leinster House 2000 works”.
The car park on the lawn is mainly used by Dáil staff and journalists. Politicians have their own reserved spaces to one side of the lawn or in front of Leinster House. The facility is available free to all serving and former members of the Oireachtas.
The temporary car park was put in when the spaces traditionally used by staff were closed off during the building work on Leinster House in 2000. However, it has remained a permanent feature since the new block opened six years ago.
In the meantime, the Government decided that, in the long-term, all surface parking should be removed from the Kildare Street and Merrion Street sides of Leinster House to an underground car park.
Experts from the Office of Public Works told the Oireachtas Commission in May that preliminary discussions with the National Treasury Management Agency indicated good potential for public/private investment in the project. This would be based on the possibility for revenue generation, which in turn depends on the level of availability of spaces for commercial use.
“It is clear that the viability of the project as a ‘PPP’ type investment with a sufficient income stream would be very dependent on there being a significant availability of spaces for private use, eg at night, on non-sitting days and/or at weekends,” said the commission minutes.
It noted that construction of the underground car park was unlikely to commence within two years, and would take a further two years to complete. In that context, it took the view that it would be impractical and a poor use of public funds to restore the lawn only to dig it up in two years’ time to build the underground car park.
© The Irish Times

Surprise, surprise.

Can the Dail simply decide that this is the case? Is there any other building of such national and historical importance in which a “temporary” carpark is allowed to be retained for so long? Also, is there any other major Georgian House in Ireland which has been allowed to build an underground carpark under the lawns directly surrounding it?

Of course it can! Who’s to complain!? I imagine this ‘temporary’ car park will be here for some time yet. And imagine the collective backslapping when TDs finally get exTDs and journalists their free parking in a nice expensive underground carpark and reinstate the Lawn (it being such a vital piece of our heritage you know). Dignity of the House me arse!

“The facility is available free to all serving and former members of the Oireachtas.”

I’m certain that I’ve heard of spouses of former TDs using it too. Mrs Reynolds’ shopping trips spring to mind, no? And don’t ministers have cars with drivers? So why they need all day free parking is beyond me.

They should be ashamed of themselves. Surely there’s a handful opposed to this? Higgins (J. and M.D.), Cuffe, E. Ryan? Mc Manus? Cullen?

Sure what do our opinions matter? We’re only the plebs.

With substandard transit

TDs slow in paying debts in Dáil bar, even at €3.70 a pint
From:ireland.com
Tuesday, 18th July, 2006

Politicians might be paying too little for their pints, wine and spirits in Leinster House, it has emerged after an audit which found that the profit margins in the Dáil bar are too low, writes Liam Reid, Political Reporter.

The audit, by the Comptroller and Auditor General’s office, also found that TDs and senators were not being chased up quickly enough to pay off their bar tabs.

The comptroller’s concerns were outlined in a standard report called a management letter sent to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, which controls the annual €100 million budget for running the Dáil and Seanad.

The letter raised a number of small items concerning the running of the Houses of the Oireachtas, and its bars and restaurants, which were in the main found to be well run with good financial controls.

There are four bars and restaurants in operation in Leinster House, including a visitors’ bar, members’ bar, public self-service restaurant and members’ restaurant. The self-service and visitors’ bars are also open to staff and political journalists based in Leinster House.

According to minutes of the commission’s audit committee meeting in February, the management letter raised the concerns about “a drop in gross margin and the poor return of wine/spirit sales” in the bar and restaurant facilities.

Indeed, TDs, senators and those working in Leinster House, including political journalists, enjoy one of the best value pints in Dublin. A pint of Guinness costs €3.70 in the Dáil visitors’ bar, 50c cheaper than a pint across the road in Buswell’s Hotel.

However, members of the audit committee dismissed any suggestion that the prices should be increased.

Independent senator Joe O’Toole said there could be “no move to increase profit by increasing margins at the expense of TDs and staff”, the minutes state.

The audit committee was also told that the comptroller had raised the issue of “collection of debtors” in relation to the bars and restaurants. The only debtors are TDs and senators who are afforded the facility of a “tab”.

The system is considerably useful for TDs and senators, many of whom entertain large groups of constituents when the Houses of the Oireachtas are in session.

However the minutes stress the issue did not relate to “bad debts” but rather to “slow collection”.

Sound familiar?

16/6/2007

As this thread contains quite a bit of Kildare Place material, this might as well go here. I came across this photograph of Kildare Place from c.1890 in the National Library Collection. What a radically different place it was 🙁

© National Library of Ireland

Also note the Georgian terrrace in the distance forming one side of Merrion Street prior to demolition for Government Buildings/Royal College of Science.

The grand Victorian on the site of the present Department of Agriculture was the Church of Ireland training college according to Frank McDonald. Acquired in the early 1960s by John Laing, a large UK contruction firm, they got permission in 1963 to build an eight-storey office block on the site, but nothing happened until the State stepped in in 1969, paid some of the site acquisition costs, and then got Irish Life of all people to bank-roll the construction of the block, to be built by Laing. Notoriously of course, Irish Life thereby acquired the freehold of the building, and rented it to the State on a tenure of 150 years! (it’s since been bought out). Indeed by 1984, the rent annual rent amounted to the cost of building it in the first place!

The two Georgians as pictured before were demolished by the State in 1957, and replaced by McGrath’s brown brick wall, now rsther picturesquely coverd in ivy. Apparently a Governemnt minister at the time said: ‘I was glad to see them go. They stood for everything I hate’. Here they are being stripped down.

The doorcase is remarkably similar to Richard Castle’s surviving house on O’Connell Street :(. Rather conveniently, the houses were demolished by the OPW at the same time that the State Apartments in the Castle were being restored/rebuilt from scratch, and two late 18th century fireplaces salvaged from Number 3 Kildare Place were reused there: one in the Wedgewood Room, and another in a fomer Viceregal bedroom to the rear.

Anyone any idea what/where this building is to the rear? Where Huguenot House now stands?

Also the enormous bulk of Agriculture House, as designed by Sam Stephenson, then the largest office block ever built in Ireland.

© fantasyjackpalace.com

And Kildare Place today.

@GrahamH wrote:

16/6/2007

As this thread contains quite a bit of Kildare Place material, this might as well go here. I came across this photograph of Kildare Place from c.1890 in the National Library Collection. What a radically different place it was 🙁

© National Library of Ireland

Also note the Georgian terrrace in the distance forming one side of Merrion Street prior to demolition for Government Buildings/Royal College of Science.

The grand Victorian on the site of the present Department of Agriculture was the Church of Ireland training college according to Frank McDonald. Acquired in the early 1960s by John Laing, a large UK contruction firm, they got permission in 1963 to build an eight-storey office block on the site, but nothing happened until the State stepped in in 1969, paid some of the site acquisition costs, and then got Irish Life of all people to bank-roll the construction of the block, to be built by Laing. Notoriously of course, Irish Life thereby acquired the freehold of the building, and rented it to the State on a tenure of 150 years! (it’s since been bought out). Indeed by 1984, the rent annual rent amounted to the cost of building it in the first place!

The two Georgians as pictured before were demolished by the State in 1957, and replaced by McGrath’s brown brick wall, now rsther picturesquely coverd in ivy. Apparently a Governemnt minister at the time said: ‘I was glad to see them go. They stood for everything I hate’. Here they are being stripped down.

The doorcase is remarkably similar to Richard Castle’s surviving house on O’Connell Street :(. Rather conveniently, the houses were demolished by the OPW at the same time that the State Apartments in the Castle were being restored/rebuilt from scratch, and two late 18th century fireplaces salvaged from Number 3 Kildare Place were reused there: one in the Wedgewood Room, and another in a fomer Viceregal bedroom to the rear.

Anyone any idea what/where this building is to the rear? Where Huguenot House now stands?

Also the enormous bulk of Agriculture House, as designed by Sam Stephenson, then the largest office block ever built in Ireland.

© fantasyjackpalace.com

And Kildare Place today.

It really is heartbreaking to see what was was done to the city..

Reinstatting the lawn would be the perfect opportunity for the Greens to make the subject curtilage green in the most literal sense possible.

Can they do it?

@GrahamH wrote:

16/6/2007
Also the enormous bulk of Agriculture House, as designed by Sam Stephenson, then the largest office block ever built in Ireland.

© fantasyjackpalace.com

You can also see some of “the enormous bulk of Agriculture House” from Merrion Street, as it protrudes above Government Buildings. Harmonious.

@PVC King wrote:

Reinstatting the lawn would be the perfect opportunity for the Greens to make the subject curtilage green in the most literal sense possible.

Can they do it?

Perhaps if someone reminded them that Noel O’Gara has been threatened withh jail for attempting to use Dartmouth Square as a car-park. 🙂

@mollox wrote:

Perhaps if someone reminded them that Noel O’Gara has been threatened withh jail for attempting to use Dartmouth Square as a car-park. 🙂

Perhaps if Jackie Healy Rae parks a few caravans there? He never showed us that piece of paper y’know!!!

I’ll have to write to my local TD Chris Andrews and remind him of that Mollox!

Especially as he did make an election issue out of it!

Reason for edit, I always mix up tubridy’s cousin’s

The protrusion of Agriculture House over the corner of Govt Bldgs is an annoyance alright. Whenever it’s knocked and sold perhaps it could be part of the deal to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

I quite like the department of agriculture building I must admit. Somehow I think it works quite well on the Kildare Street side.

Nice images of Kildare Place Graham.

I agree: all of those square precast units repeated over and over are oddly attractive – they must appeal in a logical, Duplo building block kind of way. And for such an enormous building, including a considerable height, it’s remarkably unobtrusive. It would appear to achieve this by having little or no service layer between the floors – I suspect it might not have air conditioning given all of those hundreds of windows open (in contrast to some of Stephenson’s other work), and it’s quite a shallow building with windows on all elevations. Its monolithic scale is also greatly reduced because there’s no principal facade; indeed most of the building is pretty much hidden in one way or another!

Yes the sneaky intrusion of its upper floor over the parapet of Government Buildings is one of the little-often mentioned planning mistakes of the 1960s. Without question this ought to be rectified before/when the Department ever move out.

It’s much worse once you’re inside the gates.

In a way it’s interesting how times have changed, both in terms of Government Buildings itself and how underestimated it was at the time (partly to do with its condition), and in how planning applications are compiled and processed. Renderings of sightlines and visual impact assessments would be central to a modern-day development application of this kind.

Not that air con plant and water tanks aren’t still slipping through the net…

@Today’s Irish Times wrote:

Plans to restore Leinster Lawn to be reviewed
Olivia Kelly

Plans to restore Leinster Lawn, which was paved over almost 10 years ago to create a “temporary” car park for the Dáil, are to be reviewed at an Oireachtas Commission meeting next week.

A delegation from the Office of Public Works (OPW) is to appear before the commission to discuss plans for a two-storey underground car park, underneath Leinster House, which would facilitate the reinstatement of the lawn facing on to Merrion Square.

Leinster Lawn was replaced by a car park in July 1998 as a “temporary” measure during the construction of new facilities for Leinster House. The planning permission for the work at the time required that the lawn be reinstated after the works on Leinster House were completed in 2000. However, this was never done.

The car park on the lawn is now mainly used by Dáil staff and journalists. Politicians have their own reserved spaces to one side of the lawn or in front of Leinster House. The facility is available free to all serving and former members of the Oireachtas.

Promises of an underground car park have been made since 2000. The OPW in late 2006 told the Oireachtas Commission, an 11-member group of TDs and Senators which is responsible for the facilities at Leinster House, that a car park under the building was feasible and could be completed by the beginning of 2011. The OPW had expected an answer from the commission earlier this year, but no decision was made.

However, the new commission, formed since the general election, has scheduled a meeting with the OPW on December 12th to discuss the matter and it is expected that detailed proposals will be put forward.

The restoration of the lawn has been the subject of consistent campaigning by environmentalists over the years, including Green TD John Gormley, now the Minister for the Environment.

A spokesman for Mr Gormley said that he has no involvement in, or responsibility for, the project in his new role. A decision on the project, which will also require Government approval, would allow the car parking at the Kildare Street side of Leinster House to be removed.

The meeting next week is also likely to focus on the long-term development of the Leinster House complex. Proposals including the possible construction of a new Dáil chamber, or major works on the existing chamber and the expansion of the complex to take over the neighbouring Department of Agriculture offices, were made by the OPW to the commission in September 2006.

The expected increase in TD members over the coming years will require the expansion of Dáil facilities. Leinster House, built as the home of the earls of Kildare in the mid-18th century, was bought from the family a century later by the RDS.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2007/1203/1196375209810.html

2015 anybody?

If it goes underground, will it be Bertie’s ultimate “Dig-out?”
Kb.

The Fall by the Dail?

Thought this was a good time to dig this up again. Walked passed it on a Sunday recently and noted how impressive it looked when not being used as a car park.

Well, of course, we’ve heard all this before, but for what it’s worth…

@The Sunday Times, October 26th wrote:

Paradise regained behind the Dail

Leinster Lawn to be restored after car-park plans are scrapped due to lack of funds Colin Coyle

They paved “paradise” and put up a parking lot. Now the government has been told that Leinster Lawn, a once lush green area behind the Dail and Seanad, will be restored.

The Office of Public Works (OPW) told Oireachtas officials last week that it plans to replant it in spring after plans for a 500-space underground car park at Leinster House were scrapped due to a lack of funds.

The lawn was taken away and replaced by a car park in July 1998 as a “temporary” measure. Planning permission terms from Dublin city council stated that it should be reinstated by the end of 2000. This never happened, and the site now has a reputation as one of the capital’s biggest eyesores.

The space has been used as a parking apron for Dail staff, journalists and occasionally, TDs and senators, who also have their own parking spaces to the side of Leinster House.

More recently the OPW announced it would build an underground car park whichwould allow the lawn to be replanted, but this has been deemed financially unviable.

An OPW spokesman said: “We plan to reinstate the lawn during the growing season next year.” Developers proved reluctant to take on the underground car park in a public private partnership. The Oireachtas argued that the park could be self-financing in 30 years.

Restoring the lawn has been the subject of campaigning by environmentalists since 1999, including by John Gormley, Minister for the Environment.

Ian Lumley of An Taisce said: “It’s about time . . . The Department of the Environment has a new strategy to prevent people from paving over their front lawns to reduce localised flooding, so it’s high time they heeded their own advice.”

Leinster House was built in the late 18th century by the Earl of Kildare, who predicted that others would follow from the more genteel northside. The Georgian squares around Leinster House became the destination of choice for aristocrats.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5014954.ece

Removal of Dáil car park opposed by some members of commission

MARK HENNESSY, Political Correspondent

THE TEMPORARY car park in Leinster House, which covered a historic lawn when it was created nearly a decade ago, is to be removed this summer, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission decided this week.

However, the decision to restore Leinster Lawn was not easily made, according to sources, and a number of members of the commission opposed the motion proposed by Fianna Fáil TD Michael Mulcahy.

Leinster House has 293 parking spaces which are used by members of the Oireachtas, some Oireachtas officials and some journalists. It will have 225 once the work is completed.

The Office of Public Works is prepared to offer 29 replacement spaces at other government institutions, but a spokesman last night said: “We will not be buying new stock.”

Minister of State at the OPW Martin Mansergh urged the members of the commission – which is responsible for running Leinster House – to agree to the change, which is unpopular with many in the buildings.

Leinster House, he said, could not seek to retain a development that should have disappeared years ago as part of the planning conditions that were given when a major extension called LH2000 was built.

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey wrote a strongly worded letter to the commission, supporting the removal of the parking places and arguing that politicians had to give a lead on public transport.

The restoration of the lawn will be done by the OPW at a cost of approximately €200,000 – a far cry from the €500,000 figure that was pencilled in for the work in earlier plans.

That earlier figure was based on the assumed use of contractors to do the job. Using OPW staff will be more economical, Mr Mansergh told the commission.

Leinster Lawn, which faces Merrion Square in front of the Houses of the Oireachtas, was replaced by a car park in July 1998 as a temporary measure during the construction of LH200.

The planning permission for the work at the time required the lawn be reinstated after the building work was done, but this did not happen because the OPW deferred the work on the grounds that an underground car park was to be built.

The decision on Wednesday means that the car park, which would have cost €25 million and would have been open to the public, has now been deferred indefinitely because of the cutbacks.

© The Irish Times

You can tell it was written by a political correspondent!

So we’re none the wiser as to how these spaces are going to be replaced. Where are 225 spaces going to be ‘once the work is complete’? By my estimation, the Kildare Street courtyard/garage forecourt has 70-80 spaces. Accounting for the 29 spaces being offered elsewhere, what of the 120-odd shortfall?

The current arrangement on Leinster Lawn comprises approximately 70 spaces between the railings and the Cenotaph, and a further 50 or so on each side flanking the National Gallery and the Natural History Mueseum – totalling 170 spaces on the site of the Duke of Leinster’s pleasure gardens. One can only deduce from the proposed reduction from 293 spaces in the whole complex to 225, that only the central Cenotaph-to-railings section of the Lawn is to be removed along with those at the railings end of the National Gallery flank.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kildare Street frontage was reconfigured to take some of the displaced spaces. A parking reshuffle you might say – true to form, an image exercise which achieves nothing.

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

Graham theyre only removing the temporary ones between the obelisk and the railings put in a decade ago. I don’t believe there ever was a proposal to remove all the spaces.

That might be so, but it’s a missed opportunity to lift the bar – imagine a more integrated relationship between Leinster Lawn park with Merrion Square? Why not a corridor connecting the Natural and National museums, providing linkage amongst the 4 cultural institutions?

That’s the problem with this area; incremental proposals or impositions and no overall plan The lawn by itself, the mooted natural museum extension, and the Unknown tomb of the Soldier recently erected within the park railings – seemingly no coordination despite all state controlled.

A little bit of imagination in handling this quarter could pay real dividends.

Fine Gael opposes restoring lawn as a waste of money despite agreeing to it earlier this year.

@Irish Independent wrote:

Anger over ‘waste’ of €230,000 to restore Dail lawn

By Michael Brennan Political Correspondent
Tuesday July 21 2009
THE plan to restore the Dail car park to its former glory as ‘Leinster Lawn’ has been condemned as an “indefensible waste of public money”.

The greening project, which is due to take place over the summer, will see the car park at the rear of Leinster House dug up at a cost of €230,000. It will also cost the taxpayer an undisclosed amount to hire extra car parking spaces in other city centre locations.

Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter said the work was “lunacy” at a time of unprecedented national economic crisis. “This is not the time for taxpayer’s money to be allowed to walk out the gates of Leinster House. A stop must be put to this midsummer madness,” he said.

The lawn was turned into a temporary 68-space car park in 1999 while re-development work took place on the new Millennium wing of Leinster House. Under planning permission conditions, it had to be restored after 10 years.

Shocked

Mr Shatter called on Environment Minister John Gormley to support his call for the cancellation of the project and secure a retention order to comply with planning permission.

A spokesman for Mr Gormley said the decision to restore Leinster Lawn was made by the all-party Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, which includes three Fine Gael members.

“He is shocked that a TD of such long standing has such a basic lack of knowledge of how decisions are made in his own name and with his own party’s support,” he said.

Mr Gormley is a supporter of the move because he believes the people of Dublin would prefer a lawn to “an ugly car park”.

“He believes it is long overdue and it is in breach of planning at the moment,” his spokesman said.

The Office of Public Works will hire 29 extra car park spaces in other city centre locations, bringing the total number of spaces available to 254 for TDs, Senators and other staff working in Leinster House.

The Oireachtas Commission made its decision to restore the Leinster Lawn at a meeting earlier this year.

One of its members, Fine Gael Tipperary South TD Tom Hayes, said the commission had no option but to restore the lawn. “We have to abide by the rules and regulations. The Houses of the Oireachtas couldn’t be seen to break the planning regulations when ordinary people have to do it,” he said.

– Michael Brennan Political Correspondent

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/anger-over-waste-of-8364230000–to-restore–dail-lawn-1831854.html

Gas, this changed world we live in. It used to have such positive connotations, the phrase “restored to its former glory”. Now it seems its a dirty word.

I see this as a legal strategy for the OPW in a project down the road.
A small piece of the puzzle…

The economic crisis was largely brought on by selfishness and crass individualism – the kind of attitude where everything is reduced to functionality and its monetary value. Is there not a pittance in the public purse for the restoration of a symbolically important space in front of the national parliament? Even in the case of a global financial cataclysm, this is the one building in Ireland that demands some care and attention. Its significance would be to remind us that respect for the national community and for the quality of life of ordinary citizens is more important than creating the conditions whereby individuals can make vast piles of cash, and it would thus set a good example for how the mandarins ought to conduct themselves in the future.

But no. Apparently, we should let the politicians keep the perk of a fancy parking space while the national parliament remains as shabby as those who inhabit it.

Hear! hear! As the parliamentarians say… If you neglect routine maintenance and necessary public works in a recession, you build up endless (and expensive) problems for the future, cf. potholes.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter said the work was “lunacy” at a time of unprecedented national economic crisis. “This is not the time for taxpayer’s money to be allowed to walk out the gates of Leinster House. A stop must be put to this midsummer madness,” he said.

Great argument Alan. What the government should be doing is keeping all of our money stuffed in the mattresses in Leinster House. And sure while we’re at it, the OPW crowd can sit there twiddling their thumbs until Celtic Tiger 2.0 roars into our lives.

So works are well underway at Leinster House. A deceptively large hoarding in the Kildare Street forecourt conceals relatively minor works to the entrance podium – designed by Raymond McGrath in 1948, with its rather odd maritime-like copper mushroom lamps – enabling universal access. The wheelchair ramp to the front of Leinster House is also being modified.

Around on Merrion Square the €250,000 lawn is coming along nicely. It’d want to be.

Rather crude detailing presents itself to the passerby, but what more can one expect in these times.

The rare breeds of the hallowed grounds of the national parliament complex appear bemused.

Albert stoical as ever.

An impressive scaffold has also been erected against the garden front of Leinster House, apparently enabling the central attic window to be used as a rubbish chute.

I was amazed to see the concrete kerbing. Its so cheap! Given the price tag some nice soft limestone or granite would have been expected. And no lightiing. No imagination. Just a rather large bill.