Earlier this year, the council had said it would be done about now. But that's been pushed back again.
A red crane towered over Merrion Square’s evergreen trees on Monday evening, swaying slowly, while some men in high-vis vests worked on the park’s tearoom below.
The project remained very much a gravelly construction site.
The building was surrounded by scaffolding. Parts of the roof were covered in a silvery tarp, and the brickwork on the cafe’s north facade was exposed.
Ivy climbed upwards, close to hurdling the wooden hoardings. The gated entrance to the site was blocked off by temporary steel railings, and inside, there was a stack of orange insulation boards sealed in plastic.
A big swathe of the park has been boarded up and out of bounds for the public for years now, said Kathleen Rhodes, who lives in the area, on Tuesday morning. “It’s distracting from the overall enjoyment of the area. It’s become a complete eyesore.”
The hoardings are temporary, she said. “But it’s taken so long.”
Beginning construction in June 2023, Dublin City Council estimated that works would take 12 months. But after multiple delays, the project’s completion date was pushed further and further down the line.
Although the council had earlier this year estimated the project would be finished during the summer, that's now pushed to autumn, said a council spokesperson on Tuesday.
So, the tearoom should be open to the public either at the end of this year or the beginning of 2027, they said.
The idea of a tearoom and public toilet in Merrion Square appeared in a 2014 conservation and management plan for the park, prepared for the council by Howley Hayes and Associates.
Once works finally started in the summer of 2023, the council estimated that the cafe would be finished by June 2024, costing about €3.4 million. But the pricetag nudged up.
In its capital programme for 2025 to 2027, the council said it expected to spend €4.9 million on the building.
An audit report by the Local Government Audit Service, published in November 2025 said the approved budget for the project was by then €6.1 million, funded by development levies.
That audit also found that the project was not in compliance with council, national and EU procurement regulations when the cost of consulting architects increased from €246,000 to €655,000.
At the council’s South-East Area Committee meeting in January, Fine Gael Councillor Danny Byrne tabled a motion asking for a delegation from the Parks Department to explain the cost overruns regarding the tearooms.
Members agreed that the department would make a presentation to the committee, Byrne said on Tuesday, “Like, it seems an extraordinary among of money, and we need to be accountable to the taxpayers for every euro spent there.”
There needs to be a “forensic, line-by-line” analysis on what was spent, he said. “Because it seems like runaway costs on millions and millions.”
A council spokesperson did not respond when asked for an update on the estimated cost of the tearoom.
Rhodes, the Merrion Square area local, has written to the council seeking updates, and to complain about the length and cost of the project, she said. “Numerous times. Numerous times.”
But she received no information, she said.
The wait is frustrating, she said. “I like to walk into town. My usual walk is to walk through the park, and it means walking through a construction site.”
A spokesperson for the council said on Tuesday morning that construction works are ongoing with an expected completion date in September or October.
That includes new pavements, and new public lighting leading to the tearooms and Oscar Wilde sculpture, they said. “That quadrants of the park will be re-landscaped in accordance with the park conservation plan.”
An operator for the tearoom is going to be appointed by the council “shortly”, they said.
Meanwhile, the council is also moving forward with other similar tearooms elsewhere in the city.
They will engage with a design team this year to revive plans for a cafe in Bushy Park, they said, noting too that a possible tearoom in Blessington Street Basin is also being considered for the next capital programme, which sets out how funding has been allocated for big projects in the years ahead.
Dublin City Councillors say outreach about the major project has been to residents in the Fingal County Council area – leaving locals in affected city neighbourhoods, such as Finglas, without a proper voice.
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