Vol. 322 No. 8
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £45,435,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1980, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of Public Works; for certain domestic expenses; for expenditure in respect of public buildings; for the maintenance of certain parks and public works; for the execution and maintenance of drainage and other engineering works; and for payment of a grant-in-aid.
I should like to offer both praise and blame to the Minister and his subordinates in this matter. Many of the operations of the Office of Public Works in regard to national monuments and to buildings or structures of historic interest and worth are extremely tasteful and well executed. I suppose it is hard to expect that in an empire of the kind presided over by the Office of Public Works everything will be well done. Unfortunately they do not show the same sense of sensitivity in every case. I understand it may be too much to expect that but I have to point out that there is a certain insensitivity with regard to their treatment of minor monuments. Many of these memorials are not very famous but nonetheless they are attractive features of the decoration and fittings of public buildings.
I want to mention two examples and I hope that by mentioning them here in the hearing of the Minister and his officials something may be done about them. If I had time I could give many such examples. I am sure Deputy Quinn could multiply those examples by the thousand because I know it is a matter of special interest to him. About 12 years ago a bomb was placed underneath a granite obelisk on the front at Dún Laoghaire just above the mailboat pier. It was placed there to commemorate the visit of a British monarch to this country in 1821—King George IV. I want to assure the House that I do not care a fig for King George IV, and I hope the Minister will accept that. However, I believe if we have a monument it should be maintained. If we are so sensitive and thin skinned that we cannot bear these memorials of our unhappy past, then let us remove them. I am sure that in a far-flung corners of the British Empire or even in Britain there are people who would be glad to have that obelisk if it were offered to them. If we want to keep it, let us keep it up. If we do not want it, let us get rid of it. Let us not do the half-thing, the slave thing, the bogman thing that is all too common here.
I remember when I was a student about 25 years ago Dublin Corporation, that prize collection of patriots, decided they could not bear the sight of the cast-iron crowns on Kingsbridge. The crowns were taken away: the bridge did not go because we still had to go back and forth. across it but it was a demonstration of patriotism in 1950 to remove the crowns. Essentially that broke up the unity of the design. That bridge was erected at the time of the visit of King George IV and it was called after him. If we are ashamed of our history let us knock down the whole damn thing, build another bridge and christen it Heuston Bridge. This fidding around, re-christening it after a patriot of our own while spoiling what was put there which, whatever its history, had a unity and an attraction of its own——
I doubt if the Office of Public Works were responsible for Heuston Bridge.
I believe it was done on the motion of Dublin Corporation. Certainly the Office of Public Works are responsible for the condition of the memorial in Dún Laoghaire. It rests on four stone spheres and one of them was blown out by the explosion 12 years ago. Since that time it has been resting on what I can only call a "paddy-ignorant" block of wood and naturally that is deteriorating. One day it will rot away completely and the memiorial will fall and quite likely injure people. We should remove the damn thing or else spend a few pounds—as much money as would be spent on some tuppenny ha'penny celebration for something most people never heard of — and replace the memorial as it should be. We should do one thing or the other. I have no ideological commitment to the memorial good or bad but it is visually an attractive feature and I am sure that Deputy Quinn would agree with me. I do not want to exaggerate these matters but to an eye that is sensitive to what is around one on the street—that goes for many people here as well as tourists—these things are important.
When I was elected to the Seanad in 1969 there was a Victorian lamp standard—the standard is still there— near the Merrion Street gate. Even though its proportions showed it was originally designed to hold a lantern at its summit—it was roughly two feet in depth with outward sloping square sides in the lower half—it was replaced by a wretched little article I could put in my pocket. It was like something one would see outside a suburban villa in Stuttgart or in some industrial town in the Ruhr. It had horrible little amber panes of glass, with fake bottle bottoms. It was the most revolting little contraption. When the late Deputy Henry Kenny was in charge of the Office of Public Works I asked him to do me and many more people the favour of improving the visual amenity of this place by finding somewhere in the vast empire of the OPW an appropriate lantern to surmount the standard. Fair play to the late Deputy Kenny, he found that lantern and had it erected. It was a joy to the eye and I think Deputy Quinn would agree with me. Will the House believe me when I say that is gone now and it is replaced by a grisly circular lantern that is completely out of keeping?
I apologise for holding up the House on points like this but these are the things that get us written off as ignorant people who do not care about their surroundings. I do not care about the colonial past. Funnily enough, the Russians who are much more ideologically hostile to their past are very careful to keep and maintain the memorials of the Tsarist times. Try blowing up one of their palaces and see what happens. Try vandalising one of the monuments, however sad it may be for the history of the ordinary Russians in Leningrad, and see what happens. The Irish, not because they have any ideological commitment one way or another but because they cannot be bothered to have a view or an opinion or to do anything about the matter allow what I have described to go on around us. They allow a situation to be reached in which, as the poet Raftery said, "nothing is whole that could be broken". That appears to be the motto of the Irish establishment, represented far more by the Minister's party than by any other party in the House.
I realise I have spoken excitedly about this matter. I do not wish it to diminish the sincerity of the praise I gave to the Office of Public Works for the very fine work they have done which everyone admires.
I will take up the point which was rightly made by Deputy Kelly, which he well illustrated in his inimitable manner. The range is quite exhaustive, it ranges from the small Victorian lamp standard to which the Deputy referred to the devastation that is done under the arterial drainage scheme. Areas of our landscape are transformed by the machinations of a JCB which when draining a river piles high on either side of the river the excavated material so that what had been a river landscape from time immemorial is transformed into a sort of half-manufactured canal or half-excavated river. The columnist Mr. John Healy has written on numerous occasions about this form of devastation.
I asked a number of questions in relation to landscaping on the completion of arterial schemes on the Boyne, Blackwater and so on, but the present Minister of State was not in office then. It is possible to make provision for the landscaping of the excavated material along the banks of rivers. There is no evidence to suggest that this is being done. Perhaps the Minister would indicate precisely the position in relation to this. When an arterial drainage scheme is done is a landscape plan prepared? Have the Department qualified landscape architects and horticulturalists in the Office of Public Works to cope with this work? Who gets to see these plans? Do either the local authority or the local group of An Taisce? These bodies should be involved. If landscaping is not taken into account, we are just transforming through carelessness landscapes that have been imprinted in the minds of people of the area.
I seek guidance from the Chair because I wish to raise some matters in relation to this premises. I am not sure whether it comes under this Estimate or under the Estimate for the Houses of the Oireachtas and the European Assembly.
There is an Estimate for the Houses of the Oireachtas. We could raise it under that.
Is this the question of the bar and its continued closure?
Those matters can be raised on the Estimate for the Houses of the Oireachtas.
Subheads E and D refer to £12.5 million in the coming year. The appearance of many of the buildings occupied by State Departments is quite scandalous. The entrance halls and the windows are not cleaned and so on. The degree of maintenance and cleaning down of reception areas, the furnishings and so on are at an unacceptably low level. We are talking here in the region of the millions of pounds for maintenance and supplies. Surely some of it is allocated for maintenance and surely somebody in the Office of Public Works reports directly back to the Minister and says that Oisin House, for example, is due for regular maintenance and clearance. The Department of Social Welfare in Townsend Street is a particular example of this sort of thing. It was a scandal last winter and the previous winter to see people queuing on the street waiting for payments because of the difficulties caused by the postal strike. It made Dicken's London look like a benign utopia—the misery of coming down Townsend Street and seeing the miserable people who through no fault of their own were forced on to the social welfare system. We could not even put a roof over their heads while they were waiting to have an inquiry dealt with. What programme do we have in terms of clearing and keeping clean the public aspects of the public buildings? Arising from a question that Deputy Griffin of the Fine Gael Party put down to the Taoiseach I would appeal that something should be done in relation to the display of public art and for a general improvement in the visual appearance of public buildings for which we have been asked to vote moneys to maintain.
In reply to Deputy Kelly about the monument in Dún Laoghaire, this was a decision by the Minister for Finance in consultation with the Government and the Board of Works have made this monument safe.
Are they going to restore it or not?
I do not think so.
Is it going to remain there with a lump of wood in it?
This was——
Do not admit that, for God's sake.
This was a Government decision. We made the structure safe after it had been damaged by a bomb.
Could I ask the Minister——
We cannot have this.
In making it safe somebody designed that piece of wood and somebody approved it. Surely there is somebody with a visual eye in the architects' department who could say "That looks pretty unacceptable" and "why can we not do something that is more in keeping with it?" We could achieve both objectives.
We will look into the matter and will report back to the Deputy on it. Deputy Quinn mentioned arterial drainage and the landscaping of an area on the completion of arterial drainage works. The Board of Works have done a very good job on arterial drainage. We will dredge five rivers this year. This will drain a great acreage of land and will benefit the agricultural sector. Our Department would not be responsible for looking after the landscaping when we finish an arterial drainage job.
Is a landscape plan prepared under subhead G. 1 which relates to surveys and construction work? Is there a landscape architect who designs in advance what is to be done?
We have in some cases.
In major schemes such as the Blackwater scheme these plans should be referred to the local An Taisce group and to the local authority for comment.
Yes, certainly.
We cannot proceed by way of question and answer.
Is the Minister agreeing to that proposal?
Yes.
Will the Minister put in a word for my little lamp in Leinster Lawn, please?
Will the Minister go and look after the Deputy's lamp please?
The Deputy is suggesting that the Minister restore the genii.
Will the Minister leave it the way Deputy Henry Kenny left it?
The Minister to conclude, please.
It is not the job of the Office of Public Works to look after public buildings. That is the responsibility of each Department.
