At the Irish Football Programme Club fair, people hunt for the rare and the strange
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” says Gareth Jones, standing over his own extensive collection, sprawled out over several tables.
There is €3.25 million set aside in the council’s capital budget to restore the park – and the new layout will also facilitate ongoing sports uses, say officials.
But Mick Mulhern, the council’s housing manager, says it just isn’t always possible or practical to do that.
“It started out as a football project and it's turned into a game changer for the area and surrounding areas,” says John Hayden, the chairman of Belvedere Football Club.
The Georgian building was once a meeting place for revolutionary leaders and the Gaelic League, and has been in council ownership, at least on paper, since 1998.
It’ll first come into effect on certain streets in the south inner-city, and hit the north inner-city next year, said a council official earlier this week.
“Dublin’s streets are crying out for more trees but in parts of the city, the ones we have are being hacked to bits,” says Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan.
Dublin City Council has not yet said what it's going to do with the building.
The council promised to start taking legal action against owners of derelict homes who don’t pay the levy going forward.
Whatever is decided, Dublin City Council doesn’t plan to cover the costs. Instead, it wants a private operator to come in and deliver a facility or activity.
The council hasn’t been able to find a contractor willing to take on the job of looking after these plants, a council official says.
“Focus Ireland would prefer energies went into ending homelessness rather than moving around its victims,” says Mike Allen, director of advocacy.
There were concerns about the impact on brent geese of the conversion of grassy areas to astroturf.