Councillors still looking to dename Herzog Park – and to rename Diamond Park after Terence Wheelock – say they’ve seen no progress from central government on regulations to make it an option.
Six months after Dublin city councillors were pulled back from denaming Rathgar’s Herzog Park, they are still awaiting news on what happens next, they say – and their queries are being ignored.
The issue was raised again at last week’s meeting of the council’s commemorations and naming committee.
Councillors on that same committee had initially voted to remove the name of Dublin-raised former Israeli PM Chaim Herzog from the park last July.
They had also put forward a proposal, at the same time, to rename Diamond Park in Dublin 1 as the Terence Wheelock Memorial Diamond Park – for the 20-year-old who died while in custody in Store Street Garda Station in 2005.
At the last minute, in December, the council chief executive Richard Shakespeare had put a halt to both proceedings.
He cited issues with the regulations for the naming process for public parks.
"The authority to change a placename is contained within Part 18 of the Local Government Act 2001,” he said in a statement at the time.
“The process involves the adoption by resolution of a proposal to substitute a new placename by the elected members, the holding of a public consultation and a secret ballot of qualified electors should a proposal be approved,” he said.
“While the provisions of the Act were commenced in 2019, the regulations required to govern the process for a secret ballot are not yet in place,” said Shakespeare.
Frustratingly, says Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney who chairs the naming committee, they are still seemingly nowhere on the issue.
Cooney wrote a letter on 7 April to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne, a Fianna Fáil TD, asking for an update, she said Monday.
“We were looking for when the legislation might be passed, because we can't do anything due to the legislation,” she says.
They haven’t had a response, she said.
She sent a follow-up email, again, to crickets, she says.
“You'd normally get something from the private secretary to say, you know, I'll bring this to the attention of the minister, but nothing,” she says. “It’s very odd.”
The decision at the naming committee meeting last week was for Shakespeare, the council’s chief executive, to write to the minister, and request a response, she says.
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said on Wednesday that untangling the park-naming situation “may require primary legislation”.
“The matter will be considered further by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in consultation with the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht,” said the spokesperson.
“There are a number of policy decisions that will have to be finalised between both Departments, and considered by Government,” they said. “This is a complex matter to which careful consideration is being given.”
Diamond Park holds deep and warm memories of Terence Wheelock, his brother Sammy said on Tuesday.
The family remembers him playing summer football competitions and taking part in open air boxing tournaments there through the years, he says.
“That’s why this means so much to me and my family,” he says.
Renaming the park in his honour would be a powerful symbol of his memory, for the family and wider community, who roundly support the renaming, he says.
Despite the silence from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Sammy says they are resolute in pushing forward. “We’re not backing down from it.”
“Because of what happened to him, just a 20-year-old boy, the way this happened to him, it was so unfair, it was cruel, it was wrong,” he says.
At a protest in Terence’s name this week, Councillor Conor Reddy of People Before Profit said that in a couple of weeks, cross-party councillors intend to take Minister James Browne to court over his department’s seeming inaction on regulations governing the renaming of parks.
“It's to unblock what they tried to put in our way, it's to get that renaming moving forward, something that the overwhelming majority of people in this community supported, something that the family have been calling for, for a very long time,” he said.
Having the park named for Terence would help to drive the campaign to get the Department of Justice to initiate an independent public inquiry into his death, said Reddy.
“That puts it up to the state when you have a name forever on the maps of this city, on a street sign ‘Terence Wheelock Memorial Diamond Park’ to keep this campaign alive and his memory alive as well,” he said.
Reddy told the crowd that Terence's story resonates across the north inner-city.
“There's something that we can see in it, and it's how I think working-class young men, in particular, are treated by this state, brutalised by this state quite often, and never given the compassion or the support that they deserve in their communities,” he said.
“I think when we fight for Terence, for a lot of people it's about a lot more than just getting justice for a family who's been denied it for over 20 years, it's also about turning the page and fighting for something better,” he said.
“Fighting for a society that values young people, that values working-class communities, that looks to support rather than punishment, that funds youth work, that funds community work, and that aims to prevent rather than punish,” he said.
The Department of Housing spokesperson explained in more detail what, they said, the legal issue standing in the way of park namings is.
Provisions relating to placename changes in Part 18 of the amended Local Government Act 2001 were commenced in early 2019, they said.
Previous provisions were repealed. And provisions in the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011, amending Part 18 of the 2001 Act, were commenced, they said.
Part 18 provides that Regulations can be made for the holding of plebiscites to change placenames.
But before Regulations could be made, issues were identified in respect of the interaction of the amended Part 18 of the Local Government Act 2001 and provisions contained in Official Languages legislation, said the spokesperson.
“It is expected that a resolution to the legislative complexities that exist between the Local Government Acts and Official Languages Act may require primary legislation to resolve,” they said.
There are policy decisions to be made, “particularly in relation to the role of the Council and the role of the Minister with responsibility for the Official Languages Act and the Placenames Commission,” they said.
“Work is continuing with the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht on the resolution of the placenames issue, with a view to agreeing revised policy and identification of any required legislative change,” the spokesperson said.
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