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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 2 Jun 1925

Vol. 12 No. 1

DÁIL IN COMMITTEE. - PHOENIX PARK BILL, 1925—SECOND STAGE.

I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. In doing so, I would speak for the moment merely of the legal position, which, I understand, is at present somewhat as follows. The Commissioners of Public Works, on behalf, of course, of the State, have certain rights. They have, for instance, the rights of management, and these rights, I understand, are very much the same rights that a private individual would have over a park of which he was the proprietor. As I said, I am speaking simply of the strict legal position and purely of the rights of management. They would have the right, therefore, to exclude undesirable people from the park; they would have the right of suing persons for trespass or actual damage done. They might call upon the police, or their representatives might call upon the police, to prosecute for actual breaches of the law. Now, that is so far as management is concerned. It is a different thing when you come to the question of the present existing rights, the rights, for instance, in regard to leasing or letting any particular portion of the park for any particular purpose. That power, of course, is affected by the Constitution and the Acts which follow. They have no power, naturally, of alienation or alienating any particular portion of the park. It may be that they have power to cut off certain roads from public use for a certain period of time. That is the strict limit of the legal rights of the Commissioners of Public Works. Of course the moral power to exercise any of these rights is an entirely different matter. In many cases a government, no matter what the government is, must often be slow to exercise even the strict legal rights that it possesses. It must be guided by a sense of what is proper, and also public opinion is bound to exercise a great influence over its decision. That was seen in the last century, and even in portion of the present century, in the case of the Board of Works. It was not even the strictly so-called Irish portion of the Government; it was directly under the Treasury, and yet in most cases it did act on the idea that the Phoenix Park was a public park in the sense that it was intended for the enjoyment, the recreation of the people of Ireland, and especially of the people of Dublin.

The purpose of the present Bill is to more effectively secure the enjoyment of the Park for the public. That is the significance of it. You have here something new, as it was not law in connection with the Park before. Now Section 3, sub-section (1) definitely lays it down that the Commissioners shall maintain the Park as a public park for the general purpose of the recreation and enjoyment of the public, and may maintain a particular portion of the Park for any special purpose for which the same or other portion of the Park has been hitherto used for such like purpose as the Minister shall sanction. That is not a mere pious expression of opinion. It means that when an application is made to the Commissioners of Public Works, their guiding rule must be in the acceptance of that principle. For instance, if an application is made that a certain portion of the Park be set aside for a certain purpose, they must be guided in their decision on that matter by the general principle, namely, the keeping of the Park as a place of public amusement and recreation.

The enjoyment of the Park by the public must, therefore, be the first consideration. You have a similar provision regulating Stephen's Green, in the Stephen's Green Act. That, for instance, would decide the Commissioners if a proposal were made that various erections might be put up—statuary, monuments, and so on—in Stephen's Green. If that would unduly interfere with the enjoyment of Stephen's Green by the public, undoubtedly the Commissioners would be bound to reject a proposition of that kind. The Bill, in its efforts better to secure the continued enjoyment of the Park by the public, falls into two parts, so to speak, in that connection.

I mentioned a few moments ago Stephen's Green Park. There is, of course, this difference, even so far as the public is concerned, between the Phoenix Park and Stephen's Green Park: in the case of the Stephen's Green Park, a number of the things allowed in the Phoenix Park must be excluded. The Park in Stephen's Green is a place where people may go to enjoy the air, the music, the flowers, and so on; but games obviously cannot be played there. That is not so in the case of the Phoenix Park. It has been the custom, in connection with the Phoenix Park, that certain games can be allowed there. Horses can be trained; football, hurling, cricket, and polo can be played, and in winter time there is sometimes skating. There are certain portions of the Park set apart for this particular purpose. It only requires a moment's consideration to see that if certain portions of the Park are set apart for football, there must be, to a certain extent, an exclusion of the general public from these particular portions. The idea is that the Park shall be used, not merely as a recreation ground in the more general sense where people may enjoy the air or take walks, but that it shall also be used as a recreation ground in the sense of providing playing-grounds for the great bulk of the people of Dublin.

A certain amount of local exclusion is in that sense necessary. It would not be right to allow horses to be exercised over the football grounds when a football match is actually being played, say, on the public football grounds there. When a football match is in progress on the public grounds I am speaking of now: during that time the public must be excluded from those particular football grounds. Hence it has been the custom to make leases and lettings in the Park. These leases and lettings are of two kinds, one of which gives the exclusive use of a certain portion of the Park to certain clubs. Anybody who has been in the Park will have seen instances of that. The other is of the more general type, such as the public football grounds that I mention. Generally speaking, the exclusive use of a particular ground is given to a club for a period of the year. So far as that power is concerned, it has been used with considerable discretion in the past. It is probable the Commissioners have come in for more criticism over their failure to make use of their powers in this connection rather than their too great readiness to set apart portion of the Park for various purposes. In this Bill power is given to the Commissioners, acting under the authority of the Oireachtas, and incidentally more immediately under the authority of the Minister, to make lettings for this purpose. For instance, a demand was put up quite recently for a public athletic training ground. If I recollect aright, it was referred to in the House on the occasion of last year's estimates. It may be taken for granted that in the future, even more than in the past, power of this kind will only be used with the greatest hesitation; that is, any encroachment on the use of the Park by the general public will, at all times, be granted only in very exceptional cases.

The other purpose of the Bill is to give permission or authority to the Commissioners to make bye-laws for the preservation of order in the Park and to see that the ordinary public can enjoy the Park without unduly having their rights interfered with, or their amenities disturbed, by the thoughtless and the unruly. Those bye-laws will be submitted, as the Bill lays it down, to the Oireachtas. It is definitely laid down in Section 10 that every bye-law shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. It enables also penalties for the breach of these bye-laws to be determined. There is a need of having some such power. You have it practically in every other Park. You have it in the case of Stephen's Green, and all the public parks in England and in Scotland. The need for this has been recognised for the past 50 years in the case of the Phoenix Park. Actually the Irish Executive never found time to put a Bill through the English Parliament to secure that power.

Very often the existence of these bye-laws is in itself quite sufficient. Only very rarely, for instance, in the case of the Stephen's Green Park, is it necessary to propose that the penalty shall be enforced. Generally it is sufficient for one of the guardians of the Park to bring an alleged offender to the place where the bye-law is displayed and point out to him that he is guilty of a breach of the bye-law. Generally speaking, the matter ends there. The existence very often of these bye-laws, with appropriate penalties, is sufficient to secure the purpose. In that connection it will be seen that we claim, under this Bill, as little as possible. Any interference with the individual; any interference there is, is, of course, in the interests of the general public.

There is one matter that may possibly give rise to a certain amount of doubt, and it might be no harm to have an expression of opinion on this particular point, namely, the power claimed by the Commissioners on certain occasions to close the Park altogether and to charge a fee for admission. Take a concrete case, to make it clear. When the Motor Union was anxious to get the permission of the international body which controls motor racing to have one of the races held here in Dublin, the only enclosed space in which they could reasonably be expected to hold it was in the Phoenix Park. They then made a suggestion that they should be allowed to hold the races in the Phoenix Park, but they pointed out that in order to make the races a success and in order to fall in with the conditions laid down by the body having control of international motor racing, that they would have to put up prizes of a considerable amount. They would also have to undertake rather elaborate arrangements in the way of fencing off certain roads. They calculated that in doing that they would have to incur considerable expense, and they held if they could not be given the power, if the Board of Public Works had not the authority to give it to them, or having the authority, would not give it to them, they could not make up the necessary sum. The only way they could raise all that sum would be from gate money. I am not speaking personally on the subject of whether or not if the Commissioners of Public Works had the power they should exclude the public even for a purpose of that kind. There would be no private gain, but I think the policy would be open to question as to whether they could exclude the public and charge for admission even if they had the power. The Bill now suggests that it should be left to the good sense of the Government to give this power in the occasional cases which may be necessary. I think I have dealt with the general scheme of the Bill and I move that it be read a second time.

I have no objection to the Bill in its general purposes, but there are a couple of points which I think would require clarification. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be agreeable to have defined in the Bill certain limitations. It is proposed that the Commissioners shall have power to issue licences in respect of the exclusive occupation of any portion of the Park for particular purposes, or to exclude the public from the portion of the Park to which such licence relates. It authorises persons to fence off portions of the Park. In so far as that applies to the fencing off, the allocation of certain places for particular purposes which are not likely to exclude the public from the free use of the Park, but are merely intended to allow particular clubs or associations to have primary use of the Park in these areas— the portion referred to in the licences— I have no objection, but under these provisions I can see that we will be granting the Commissioners power to erect barriers and to levy a toll in any portion of the Park for particular games or any other purpose, in fact, so long as it is subject to section 3—recreation and enjoyment. I think that we should ask the Parliamentary Secretary to agree to the inclusion of some limiting phrase, sub-section, or proviso, which will mean that the licences shall not exclude the public, or shall not make provision for charging a fee in any portion of the Park.

That brings us on to the question the Parliamentary Secretary has touched upon regarding the power to charge a fee to admit into the Park itself. I can imagine circumstances arising which would make it legitimate and not unreasonable that some kind of power of that sort should be retained, but even there I think there should be some limit. It should either be subject to the sanction of the Oireachtas, or there should be some limit of time, a very narrow limit, too. I do not know whether the Minister has thought of the possibility that under these sections, the Commissioners, while maintaining the Park for the general purpose of recreation and enjoyment, might still lease over the exclusive use of portions of the Park to societies or clubs, and only allow the public admission into these games or entertainments on payment of a fee. Apart from that view I have no objection to the Bill in general, but I think that it would be well if we could hear from the Parliamentary Secretary whether he would be prepared to accept any limitations to the powers of the Commissioners in respect of these matters I have touched upon.

A Bill for the regulation of the Phoenix Park is, of course, necessary. Of course, all parks should be under regulations, so that there can be no doubt as to any particular matter in regard to their management. I think that it would be well to consider the matter carefully before we put any power into the hands of the Commissioners to charge a fee for admission to a public park. It seems to me to be contrary altogether to one's idea of what a public park should be. I never heard of a fee being charged for admission into any other public park. Of course there may be circumstances that we do not know of in regard to the Phoenix Park, but I think it seems rather treading on the liberty of the people of Dublin to make them liable to pay a fee to go into a park which they are already paying to keep up. There is also another aspect. I think that the Phoenix Park is the biggest park in the world, practically. To charge a fee to get into the Park would not bring in any money. It would be very difficult to enforce any fee for admission considering the size of the Park, and there would be more money spent in enforcing the order than would be got in carrying it out. Apart from that, I think that we should consider the matter carefully before we make any rule in regard to charging a fee. It seems too much like treading on the liberty of the subject.

I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what exactly he meant when he used the words "to give power to enter into agreements and to make leases"? What was in his mind when he was talking about making leases to any person in connection with a public park? Is it proposed for any period of time to lease to anybody or to any company any portion of the Phoenix Park? I have a reason for asking that question, because I remember some two years ago somebody mooted the idea that portion of the park might be rented, with some of its lodges, to certain horse-trainers. I think it would be a deplorable thing that any portion of the Phoenix Park would be leased for any length of time to any private individual, even for a horse-training establishment. I heard it mentioned, and when I heard the word "lease" mentioned just now I thought the point should be cleared up. What power is there missing from the old Act governing the Phoenix Park which the Government now want? It is not right to give any authority to anybody to charge the public for going into a park for whose upkeep they are paying by way of taxation. As to the question of horse-training, I heard it mentioned in this House two years ago that certain people thought some lodges there, with ground attached, would be very suitable for a horse-training establishment. I would not like to see any portion of the Park railed off for any such purpose.

I agree with Deputy Wolfe that the public rights to the Phoenix Park should be jealously guarded. We are all very proud of the Park. But I think the Minister is quite right in securing to the Commissioners of Public Works the right to let the Park for a day or a week for a great national or international purpose. Deputy Wolfe said we should not close the Park to the Dublin people. Supposing the Tailteann Games were held here again on a far larger scale, might it not be necessary to have a park like the Phoenix Park in which to hold them? Who would be more anxious to see the Park used for such a purpose than the people of Dublin? It would be unfortunate if the by-laws governing the Park did not enable the Commissioners to let the Park and charge for it on a great occasion like that. I would be strongly in favour of having such a power.

I quite agree with the criticism of Deputy Johnson and other Deputies, but while guarding the rights of the public to the Park it would be no great hardship on occasions, such as mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary, say, for international races, to allow the Park to be used for a strictly limited period. In Section 5 the Commissioners take power to let the grazing of any portion of the Park for less than a year. That is of some importance, because at present the grazing by cattle is interfering with the amenities of the Park. In connection with the proposed regulations, the Parliamentary Secretary should take note of that. For instance, if instead of being grazed with cattle it were grazed with sheep, it would not interfere, say, with the Nine Acres, where the people most congregate to play in the summer time with their children. At present the amenities of that portion, which is probably the prettiest part, are destroyed for the people who make use of it.

There is another matter which frequently occurred to me in regard to the Park, particularly when allotments were being cultivated. Between Park-gate Street and Chapelizod, along the Magazine Road, which is one of the most beautiful portions of the Park, there is a considerable stretch of land between the Magazine Road and the wall, which on account of the slope there would be ideal for allotments for flowers. In Nottingham they have such a piece of land laid out, and it is one of the prettiest sights I have ever seen to go up to Bluebell Hill, which is very similar in its position to the Park, and see acre after acre of flowers grown there by the townspeople. In drawing up the regulations, I think the Parliamentary Secretary should consider whether it would not tend to the improvement of the Park to make use of it for that very excellent purpose.

The question as to whether grazing by cattle or sheep would be the best is not a matter I can pronounce upon. Some people think that on the whole sheep might be more objectionable. On account of the disease which makes its appearance from time to time amongst sheep it might not be advisable always to let the grazing purely for sheep. As to charging for admission to the Park, that is a power that the Commissioners ought to have. I agree, however, with Deputies that it is a power that ought to be very rarely exercised. Personally, I am not very keen on exercising it on any occasion. It is a doubtful question whether, even in the particular case I mentioned of motor races, the public should be excluded. It was put up to us, however, that unless there is that power of charging, and unless the gate money can be got, those races cannot be held. So far as the Commissioners are concerned, it will be a question of deciding which way the public would get the best value out of it on that particular day or days —two at the outside. Undoubtedly there is a case for it, as a spectacle will be provided which will afford enjoyment to large numbers. On the other hand, there will be the objectionable practice of charging for entrance even in that particular case. If we had the power, a very good case would have to be put up, even in that instance, to have the Park gates closed and an entrance fee charged. It would be different in the case of motor cycles. There is no such proposal in that case. The public will simply go in and enjoy the racing. That would, undoubtedly, be an attraction of an unusual kind on the one occasion on which it might be held. There is no proposition in that case to exclude the public or charge them for witnessing the event.

The other is entirely different, and a strong case might be put up for it. In any event, when there is a proposal to charge a fee a very strong case will have to be put up before permission could be given. So far as the question of charging fees is concerned it is done in the case of the Zoological Gardens. Fees are charged and are allowed to be charged, and no doubt that privilege will continue, as no one would seriously suggest that it should be done away with. In the case of any further leases giving permission to people to charge fees, I think such a proviso should be laid on the Tables of the Oireachtas. As to the question of leases in general that Deputy Byrne raised, it was raised on more than one occasion on the Estimates. Why should these two or three places, such as the Chief Secretary's and the Under-Secretary's Lodges be kept idle at a cost to the State to maintain them? Would it not be better to lease them? As regards athletic grounds, leases and lettings are necessary; otherwise it will be impossible to utilise the Park for that particular purpose. When the Deputy asks: "Why not use the powers the Commissioners had," he means the powers they had before the passing of the Constitution. I doubt if they have any such powers at present. Therefore, they had no power in that particular connection.

So far as the limits that Deputy Johnson suggests are concerned, I think, as to the closing of the Park, it should be only for a very short time. The only concrete instance that I had before my mind was the particular matter that Deputy Sears, and that I also, referred to. In connection with the Tailteann Games the possibility of closing the Park for International motor races that it was intended to promote in connection with the Games came up. That was the only occasion when permission might be given for one or two days, and it would be exceptional, as the events would not take place every year. I would consider the other point about the exclusion of the public from viewing games. At present it is not contemplated that the public should be excluded from viewing any games on account of the nature of the barriers put up. What we had in view was that the power that was previously in existence should be, practically speaking, continued. The second purpose the authorities had in view was that they should be in a position to make bye-laws that could be enforced. At present possibly they can make bye-laws, but they certainly cannot fix any penalties or enforce them.

Question put and agreed to.
Third Stage fixed for Tuesday, June 9.
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