Eyre Square goes full circle
More than two years after it began and 7m more than predicted, Eyre Square is back in use. Michael O'Kelly reports
The most expensive redesign of a town square in the State's history came to an end of sorts last week, with an open-air concert to mark the return to public use of Galway city's Eyre Square.
It was supposed to cost €2.5m, but Galway City Council now says the bill will come to €9.6m, while some councillors predict the actual cost will be at least €11m. Council officer Breandán Ó hEaghra denies the €9.6m bill for the "enhancement programme" is poor value for a project that included landscaping, revamping surrounding footpaths and pedestrian crossings, new street lamps and the renewal of drainage, sewerage, electricity and telecom trunk lines – but not the construction of any substantial new structures.
He says the concert was designed to "draw a line in the sand" that would allow the city to "move on".
It was a 25-month timeframe which saw a perfectly ordinary square turned into a building site before being returned to the public as an improved, if still somewhat ordinary, town square.
The Department of the Environment (DOE) has no plans to investigate a saga that resulted in extraordinary cost overruns, loss of income to city business and serious safety breaches during construction. The DOE says its auditors looked at the costings as part of its annual audits.
The "secretive decision-making" that characterised the project's management has been criticised by Fine Gael councillor Padraig Conneely, who says the true cost may never be known unless there is an inquiry. He says the Council's costing does not include major outstanding legal, consultancy and advertising costs.
When the redesign was announced in January 1999, former mayor, Labour's Catherine Connolly, appealed to the council to allow the square to become an enclosed green park. About 5,000 people signed a petition supporting this least costly of solutions, which was conducted on a non party-political basis. Catherine Connolly has resubmitted a recent motion calling for the complete costings to be published and described the council's reply as "unsatisfactory".
Then there was Chelsea flower-show award-winner Mary Reynolds' plan. Submitted free of cost, it envisaged "lawns moulded into flowing waves in a Celtic-key pattern, drawing on high-quality materials of local extraction, and native trees and shrubs". But the council declined to consider it, stating it was bound by "tender and contract procedures". Instead, it chose Samuel Kingston Construction (SKC) to implement a plan of its own choice. SKC, the company which withdrew from the project before completion, had already been issued with a default notice for unfinished work in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The Pembrokeshire Housing Association said it tried to alert Galway City Council to the situation, but the Council said it had "no record" of any contact.
Pictured above: Eyre Square today and left: as it was before the redesign