Council forfeits €600,000 for Smithfield Square, as deadline for drawdown passes

“Give us some energy,” the female MC bellowed from the stage in the middle of Smithfield Square on Tuesday evening.

It was almost 6pm. A crowd was slowly starting to assemble on the cobbled plaza, most wearing pale blue Dublin GAA jerseys.

While highlights from Sunday’s All-Ireland senior women’s Gaelic football final between Dublin and Meath played on a large screen next to the stage, David Guetta’s uplifting anthem ‘Titanium” blared from the sound system.

A young woman, leaving the Generator Hostel, stuck her index fingers into her ears, although her pained smile seemed to suggest it wasn’t dampening the noise.

The crowd had gathered for the Dublin team’s victorious homecoming.

It works great when events like that happen out on the square, but they are few and far between, said Sean Mullan, the owner of the Third Space cafe, on Monday afternoon. “Those are one-offs. It’ll be crowded for two hours and then it will be back the way it was.”

The plaza is such a special civic space in the city, Mullan says. “What it requires, more than funding, is imagination, someone with the imagination that we could make this a vibrant space that belongs to the city.”

Most European cities have one square like this that is constantly inhabited, he says. “Smithfield sadly isn’t that.”

Covid, surprisingly enough, seemed to be a promising moment, he says. “The council provided outdoor seating facilities for businesses like ours on the square. People really loved it.”

Locals had also been in discussions with the council about animating the area, he says.

In September 2021, Fáilte Ireland, the National Tourism Development Authority, even allocated Dublin City Council €847,000 to develop a cultural hub, including a carousel, outdoor gallery, and a multi-functional indoor space for creative organisations.

But, the council only drew down a little more than €160,000 under the scheme for the upgrade of lighting, a spokesperson for Fáilte Ireland confirmed last Tuesday. “The remainder of the project did not progress.”

The vaguest building in the city almost had a purpose. Again.

Dublin City Council had set its sights on improving Smithfield as it sought to help the city bounce back from the effects of the pandemic in early 2021.

That April, the council established the Office of City Recovery for this purpose, according to a its action plan report, published in October 2021.

The Office of City Recovery, directed at the time by Coilín O’Reilly looked at various projects in the city, including the provision of public toilets and street furniture.

Using grant money provided by Fáilte Ireland to improve Smithfield Square was among the projects mentioned in the Office’s action plan, which set out a number of long-term initiatives for the council to progress, like the delivery of a public realm plan, the report says.

The Smithfield animating works would be delivered in “the coming year,” the 2021 report said.

A press release, published by Fáilte Ireland in September 2021 said that, under the Urban Animation Grant Scheme, the council received a grant of €847,487 for this project.

This would be used for a “flexible cultural hub”, including “a carousel, an outdoor gallery (including media screens to promote upcoming cultural events), an outdoor performance space and a multi-functional indoor space which can be used by creative organisations”, the release says.

Computer-generated visuals provided by Fáilte showed a series of large sculptures of old Irish coins and colourful pigs surrounding the brutalist public toilets on the square.

These non-descript, dark grey buildings, located by the square’s playground, were built by the council at a cost of €132,819 and intended for the use of “service staff”.

But that toilet has never been used, says Mullan. “It’s effectively barren.”

The Fáilte-funded project to do up this whole patch of the square was met with excitement at the time.

Former Labour Councillor Alison Gilliland, who was the then-Lord Mayor, said in a press statement in September 2021, the funding would allow the council “to create a more playful, family friendly atmosphere in this space”.

But the enthusiasm dissipated, and Gilliland said on 25 July that she had no idea what happened with that grant.

Last Tuesday however, a spokesperson for Fáilte Ireland said the council only drew down €160,348 for the upgrade of lighting around the square, while the rest of the project didn’t progress.

As the council didn’t submit a request for further funding by the extended deadline of March 2025, the remaining €687,139 has now been de-committed, they said.

A spokesperson for the council on Friday said: “Due to the time requirements of the Urban Animation Scheme, it is not envisaged that the remaining allocation will be drawn down.”

But, they said work is ongoing with various Departments within the council in relation to the square’s future potential.

They are also in continuing discussions with stakeholders locally to see what enhancements can support retail and community life in the area, they said.