asked the Minister for Finance (a) the total cost of the recent installation of further lamp standards around Leinster Lawn, including the laying of the necessary cabling; (b) whether the new lamp standards and fittings were manufactured in the State; and (c) who advised the Office of Public Works on the aesthetic dimensions of this work.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Leinster Lawn Lamp Standards.
7.
(Clare): (a) The total cost of installation of the new lamp standards and luminaires at Leinster Lawn was £14,644. (b) Despite a search of the home market no lamp standard or fittings of an acceptable style and quality for this location could be found. It was necessary to import the standards and fittings through an Irish agent. (c) The design of the new lamp standards was chosen by the architects of the Office of Public Works in consultation with the engineers appointed for the installation of the lighting system.
Before Deputy Kelly asks a supplementary question I should like to tell him that I do not have any responsibility for that matter.
We need not make a meal of this. Will the Minister of State accept that to spend £14,000 in times of what are supposed to be austerity on the installation of quite superfluous and extremely ugly lamp standards on Leinster Lawn is something which only a question here will exhibit the absurdity of?
(Clare): For the information of the Deputy, I should like to state that the lamps were requested by the security authorities to provide more lighting in this area.
I could not know that; but, if what is needed is to illuminate the premises so that there can be no nocturnal intrusions into Deputies' cars or other establishments on the Lawn, might it not have been done more cheaply than by the cabling that has been provided? The reason I put the question down was because I saw this work going on for weeks, the devoted laying of cable, the digging of trenches, the laying of setts over the cables and, finally, the erection of some of the ugliest iron standards I have ever seen in my life. Could it not have been done more cheaply by putting up — it may not have been very pretty — on the walls of the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery a couple of relatively unobtrusive floodlights which could have been switched on at times of special danger?
(Clare): This work was done in consultation with the security people. This type of lighting was considered to be the most suitable for these purposes. I am not an expert on security.
I am not an expert on security either, but will the Minister of State agree that if we are to have lamp standards on Leinster Lawn they ought to be of a style and type which is reasonably congruent with the appearance of Leinster House and the buildings on either side? Will the Minister agree that these horrid little stalks with the glass bulbs on top do not conform to any such standard? I should like to draw the Minister's attention to something and invite his agreement with a proposition that Leinster Lawn generally is overfurnished, cluttered and ruined. It should be a lawn and I should like to know if the Minister will accept that it contains — I made a rough count passing in and out — an assortment of the following objects: an obelisk, statues, stone benches on which no one ever sits, asphalt paths on which no one ever strolls, bollards, lamps, floodlights, crush barriers, miscellaneous shrubs, a security ramp, a gate office, two fountains from which no water ever emerges, a pond, "no parking" signs, a hydrant milestone, a metereological office beehive, some science fiction periscopes and a sinister overgrown moat in which no good thing could ever grow.
(Clare): That is an excellent inventory and I should like to thank the Deputy for it. Maybe the Deputy has some suggestions as to what should be in Leinster Lawn?
I have, and I will make them known to the Minister of State privately in a few days' time.