Council chief says his team gave wrong timeline, when they hurried councillors to vote on Mountjoy Square redesign

At the full Dublin City Council meeting on 8 June, a council manager told councillors that they had to pass plans to revamp Mountjoy Square, or the planning process would collapse and the council would risk losing the €7.5 million funding for the project. 

In other words, they would get nothing.

"We are at the end of the planning process,” said council parks manager Les Moore, at the meeting. “If it's not approved tonight, then the Part 8 falls, and that puts the funding at risk.”

The council plans to redo the park in line with its Georgian heritage. Most councillors support the vision and design, but some have also voiced concerns about losing the existing playground and sports pitches in an area starved of both. 

Dublin City Council didn’t respond to questions submitted on 10 June, citing a leaflet published by the Association of Irish Local Government, which says that councillors should have six weeks to decide on the internal planning process, after they receive the chief executive’s report. 

But after a resident got in touch with her, Green Party Councillor Janet Horner wrote to officials three times to seek clarity on the timeline, she says. 

Today, the council's chief executive, Richard Shakespeare, wrote to councillors to tell them that the legal advice given at the meeting was wrong. 

Rather than having to make a decision on the proposal for the park at their 8 June meeting, they actually had until 14 July, Shakespeare wrote. "The advices given at the meeting, were unfortunately, incorrect," he wrote.

Said Horner: “I do believe in this project, but it is hard to stand over that when we were given unsound advice."

“Having a process that we can all stand over is essential for us as councillors as well as for residents to trust the process,” she said.

The plans will be discussed again at the next full council meeting on 6 July. Most councillors said they don’t expect any major changes to them. 

What is the plan?

In January, the council unveiled its proposal to reimagine the park in Mountjoy Square within the context of its original 1802 design, according to a council report.

The plans show grassy areas and trees, and paths to walk on, and benches to sit on, as well as a public toilet – and the creche still there. 

But the current tarmac sports area, basketball court, and existing playgrounds are gone. 

The new design shows big grassy lawns, a basketball hoop, an outdoor gym, and pieces of play equipment dotted throughout the park.

A large lawn area in the design can be used for general recreation, events or sports, a council official said in May. 

The council got 196 submissions to a public consultation on its plans for the park, with many welcoming the upgrade.

But submissions also flagged concerns about the need for better maintenance and security, the protection of the existing sports facilities, and the need to expand and upgrade the playground, according to the council’s report. 

Playgroups and early years services that use the park need a fenced-off small kids playground, says Geraldine O'Driscoll, a manager with the Society of St Vincent de Paul, which runs an early years service on the square. "The play trail won’t work for us,” she said.

At the full council meeting, Moore said the council has secured €7.5 million from the government to invest in the park.

“There is a great chance that if we don’t get this passed tonight, that we are going to lose that funding, it is URDF [Urban Development and Regeneration Fund] funding, it is timebound,” he said. 

Sinn Féin, Labour, and some independents, voted against the plans, which passed 44 to 17. 

What next?

Shakespeare said in the letter that he will hold an information session on the project next week and list the plans again for the next council meeting on 6 July. 

Councillors can still decide if they want changes to the plans, and they could still decide to go ahead as is, or against proceeding, he says.

“I’m annoyed to be honest,” says Sinn Féin Councillor Séamas McGrattan, who had suggested at the full council meeting that the plans be looked at again by the Central Area Committee. 

“The whole process has been very unsatisfactory,” McGrattan says. The plans came before the Central Area Committee in the week of the by-election when many councillors were absent, he says. “There wasn’t agreement,” he says. “People weren’t there.”

Then, at the full council meeting, councillors were pressured to agree to the plans when they were told they would lose the funding if they didn't.

There doesn’t seem to have been the usual attempt to get a consensus, he says. “Normally with these things you can work it out,” says McGrattan. 

He doesn’t want residents to feel even more confused about what is happening, he said. He doesn’t think there will be any major changes, but councillors could use follow-up meetings to clarify issues, he says. 

“Its deeply, deeply frustrating,” says Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty. It's unlikely that enough councillors will change their minds about the plans to start the process over, he says – but councillors could decide to make small tweaks that wouldn’t trigger another full planning process. 

Moriarty and Horner say that as councillors, it is just not possible to fact-check every piece of advice or report that comes in front of them, so they rely on council officials being correct.

“This wouldn’t have been caught had it not been for members of the public pursuing it significantly,” says Horner. 

She, in turn, pushed for answers from council management in three emails, she says. More than two weeks later, they admitted that the advice was wrong. 

Horner says she wants to see the plans for Mountjoy Square go ahead, but would support a deferral to address residents' concerns if that helped to build consensus.

“So we could get clearer, binding guarantees as to how they would look at an enclosed area for a toddler playground,” she says. “And how they would make sure that the central lawn was a play space and a pitch space.”

Social Democrats Councillor Cat O’Driscoll said by phone that she won’t change her mind about supporting the plans. “I support the re-imagining, and I believe that the issues that have been raised can be worked out at the detailed design phase and how we programme the space."

She has been assured that issues like a toddlers' playground can be worked out later, she says. “We understood the community's concerns,” she says, “but there was a bit of misinformation about the green space being an ornamental lawn.”

Moriarty says he is still convinced that, in the end, the rules in Mountjoy Square will mirror those of another heritage park in the city centre, Merrion Square, where sports are not permitted on the grass. "I don't believe sports will be allowed there."

Horner says she is convinced sports will still be allowed on the lawn. But it feeds a wider problem now, in that some residents in the north inner-city don’t fully trust the council, says Horner.

“They feel like Dublin 1 communities are dealt with, with less respect and less regard than communities in other parts of the city," she says.