Leinster Lawn expected to be restored during summer recess 2005
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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 TimesSurprise, 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, 2006Politicians 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 IrelandAlso 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.comAnd 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 IrelandAlso 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.comAnd 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.comYou 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
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