College Green plaza redevelopment budget soars to €80m
The project to create a traffic-free plaza is also facing additional lengthy delays with completion unlikely before the end of this decade,
Dublin City Council
officials have said.
In May 2017 the council submitted an application to
An Bord Pleanála
for a €10 million pedestrian and cycle plaza. In November 2018 the board refused permission citing the potential for 'significantly negative impacts' on bus services.
The
National Transport Authority
(NTA) in September 2020 published its final plans for a redesigned bus network for the city. Under BusConnects, services would be routed away from College Green and east Dame Street.
READ MORE
With the conflict with bus services removed, the council decided to double the size of the plaza. Traffic would be banned from the area west of the Luas lines in front of Trinity College, extending as far as the junction with Dame Street and South Great George's Street.
Two years later the council announced a new design team was required due to increases in the scope of the project.
In a briefing to councillors in recent weeks, the scheme's project manager Marie Gavin said she hoped 'preliminary designs' would be completed by the end of the summer. These designs would then be subject to a 'screening process' to determine whether the project could be progressed through the council's internal planning system or if an application to An Coimisiún Pleanála, the new name for the reconstituted An Bord Pleanála, was required.
Cost was 'a big factor' she said. 'It is a big project so it's going to cost a lot of money.'
The project had been approved for a budget of 'about €80 million' that would be part funded by the NTA. That included a 'huge contingency fee' of 'about 40 per cent' but that should 'hopefully cover everything we have to do' she said.
The timeline for the project would depend on whether an application to the Coimisiún was required, which would add 'at least 12 months, minimum' but also on the removal of the bus routes, now scheduled to happen by the end of 2026.
'Realistically we're looking at about October/ November 2027 to be on site with the project, with the best will in the world, and then it could be up to a three-year construction period.'
A spokesman for the NTA said it expected to complete rerouting of buses from the plaza area by the end of next year. The NTA will make a contribution to the cost of the project, but the level of that contribution has not yet been determined, he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
6 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Donegal and Kerry showcase football's Wild Atlantic Way
Eleven years ago, the same year both Donegal and Kerry previously contested an All-Ireland final, the Wild Atlantic Way route was launched. On a comparatively shoestring budget, Fáilte Ireland had to come up with an initiative to rebrand the splendour of the west coast in the hope of boosting a tourism industry still reeling from the economic crisis. Then chief executive Shaun Quinn went back to his homeplace in Raphoe in Donegal and conjured up the phrase. The wave-shaped acronym that became the logo followed and after that it was a case of agreeing on the route. Launched in April 2014, it was initially deemed gimmicky. The rusty stop signs were maligned as eyesores and the new road signs dismissed as the proverbial lick of paint. By the time Donegal and Kerry faced off that September, the sneering and cynicism was on the wane. Hotels in counties like Donegal were reporting bookings up by as much as 40%. Last year, it was revealed the Wild Atlantic Way has led to a 58% increase in revenue, which now totals €3 billion per annum. Not bad for giving a new name to something that was already there. Finn MacDonnell, owner of the famous Dick Mack's pub in Dingle, told this newspaper last year its creator should 'be given a trophy'. Aisling Arnold-Kelly, owner of Arnolds Hotel in Dunfanaghy reported the promotion was transformational for her business. 'We were opening on St Patrick's Day and closing after Halloween,' she told the Irish Times. 'As a result of the Wild Atlantic Way, we are now open six months full-time and five days a week in the off-season, from November to February…' A lot of what the Football Review Committee (FRC) started 10 years on from Fáilte Ireland's great marketing campaign can be likened to the Wild Atlantic Way. The product is still the product, football remains football as FRC chairman Jim Gavin had intended, but the packaging is a damn sight better. In almost every GAA field in the country, the FRC's lick of paint has amounted to two partly-elliptical arcs and a dotted halfway line. The skill of a long-range point has been flagged literally and figuratively. The quick free is quicker in the form of the solo-and-go. If the 2,500km route from Kinsale to Malin Head fuels nostalgia for ex-pats and second and third generation Irish about the old sod, the four back, three up restrictions is a nod to how the game used to be played. Like the paintings of Paul Henry and postcards of John Hinde that sold the idea of Ireland as a destination in the early half of the 20th century, there is romance to the rules. The allure of empty space as portrayed by those artists is what the FRC have advertised to footballers. Gavin may be a self-proclaimed fan of 'east coast football' but within the parameters he and his group have set, the west are this year's winners. The tropes about Donegal being too wedded to their running game because of their geography and their management's allegiance to it has been disproven by their progress under these new game conditions because they have excellent kickers. To a lesser extent, Kerry's presence in this final is notable when they seemed for a large part of the season to be slower than most to catch the hang of two-pointers, a point Jim McGuinness referenced after Donegal's All-Ireland semi-final. Both have moved with the times. The aggregate 27 points, the 2-21, the pair accumulated between themselves in the 2014 All-Ireland final could be matched or surpassed by half-time on Sunday. It's inflation but, unlike what those holidaying in Ireland are experiencing, it's the good kind. Just as the ruggedness of the west has been re-imagined, the GAA have realised that when you rebrand it, they will come. Novelty or not, attendances were up 21% for this year's group stages compared to last. Crowds for the 13 knock-out matches will exceed 430,000 and could be as much as 23% higher than 2024. That's not to say the fare from the preliminary quarter-finals has been great. It's been pretty underwhelming, in fact, after some electric group matches. The average winning margin has been 7.8 points compared to the group stages where the average gap was 5.6. Consequently, there is some pressure on Sunday's final to showcase all the good that the FRC has brought to the game before the permanency of the rules are voted on in early October, but finals are often fraught affairs and it's been six years since a stone-cold classic was delivered on this stage. But it doesn't need to be wonderful to establish that the tweaks have been a success. As those living in the Donegal and Kerry beauty spots on the Wild Atlantic Way can testify, a shower is never too far away.
Irish Times
14 hours ago
- Irish Times
Amazon is not the only multinational losing confidence in Ireland. Will a €102bn plan fix it?
This week we got a State investment plan with no list of projects and a pre-budget document with no estimate of the likely position of the public finances next year. Economic nerds like me felt short-changed. The first document was all uppy stuff about boosting investment and securing the future. The second doubled down on the scary backdrop provided by a changed world and the unpredictable actions of Donald Trump . The Government has clearly made a political decision to 'go for it' on State investment. But the document published this week was more a manifesto for the multinationals than a plan. It was a pitch to foreign investors, who have become increasingly outspoken about Ireland's energy and water infrastructure and the lack of housing for their staff . And it was a bid to try to allay public concern – on housing in particular. The head-wrecking details, including how to deliver it all – most notably in housing – are still being worked out. The decision by Amazon to abandon a project in northwest Dublin because of problems getting an electricity connection is by no means a first. There has been a building crisis of confidence in corporate headquarters in the US about Ireland's ability to deliver on these areas – and this week's plans are an attempt to send a message to these American boardrooms, who are central to our economic wellbeing. They will also look for evidence that Ireland can actually make this happen - reassurances over the years that the key infrastructure areas were being addressed have not been delivered on. READ MORE And so we have a €102 billion, five-year investment plan. It is, for sure, heading in the right direction. The Fiscal Council has estimated that Ireland's infrastructure is 20 per cent to 25 per cent behind other richer EU countries. In this context, the recent growth rate of the economy has been remarkable. But Ireland is now running hard into the infrastructural buffers. Turning this investment manifesto into a fully coherent plan and then implementing it will be a big task. Ireland has struggled to deliver on the scale of promised investment in recent years; Covid was factor, for sure, but the State missed opportunities to cash in on a time of fiscal plenty. Now, it plans to boost investment plans just as the outlook is getting uncertain. It is necessary – but it also carries some risk. It looks like a turning point may be approaching in the national finances, when more difficult decisions await and trade-offs have to be faced up to. The State has been swimming in cash in recent years – but the budget surplus is being eaten away. And this means some politically difficult choices, which have yet to be squarely faced. Corporate tax is still funding a spending rise across the board. The Government plans to increase current spending by almost 6.5 per cent next year, well ahead of inflation. However, the combination of a big investment plan and Donald Trump's policy decisions are changing Ireland's fiscal arithmetic. In the spring, the forecast budget surplus of revenue over spending for next year was €6.3 billion. And that was before any tariffs. This week's document does not update that figure. But on the basis of what we now know from this week's documents, economists have cut this forecast to around €2 billion. [ Taoiseach to 'delve into' Amazon's scrapping of Dublin plant over failure to secure power supply Opens in new window ] As Goodbody stockbroker economist Dermot O'Leary pointed out, this is a small margin for error in the light of the tariff threats and the hugely concentrated nature of our tax base. And the gamble is not so much that the State might have to borrow a bit for a few years to ramp up investment. It is that a bigger hole might appear, because such a large part of our corporate tax is potentially transitory – based on multinational tax planning rather than economic activity here – and that policy changes in the US could lead to some of this cash leaving. The Fiscal Council estimates that subtracting the tax planning froth, the public finances would be heading for a deficit next year of €13 billion. [ Corporation tax surge a sign investors have not been put off by economic uncertainty just yet Opens in new window ] Now we are, of course, into 'crying wolf' territory here. The council, Central Bank, Department of Finance and most of us who write about economics have been warning about this risk for years. In the meantime, the tax paid by multinationals has just kept heading higher. And this may not be over yet. The Fiscal Council has said that corporate tax may again outperform this year compared to forecasts, which could give the Government some leeway in 2026. But that does not remove the risk of hanging on to a tax pile which has grown so large than it has now attracted jealous eyes not only from the rest of the EU but from Washington DC. And the State investment plans lower the room for manoeuvre if something goes wrong. If you plan to spend another €34 billion over the next five years, it has to come from somewhere, and using an expected budget surplus each year to help pay is part of the plan. Already, there are signs of the budget scope tightening. We are seeing the potential juggling in Budget 2026, with the hospitality VAT rate possibly deferred until midyear to leave scope for an income tax package. But that is a bet that the cash will be there to pay for a full-year VAT cut in 2027. And this is really only budgetary small beer, if the Government is to really slow the growth of day-to-day spending to leave room for more State investment. If it does not, then any fall-off to corporate tax will leave tricky decisions. For example, the Government is committed to putting money into two State funds for the future. It is legally obliged to do so, though can stop if there is a downturn. But if the numbers do get tight, does the State borrow cash to then invest in these funds – which would look very strange? Or does it divert money from other cash holdings? Sitting watching will be the National Treasury Management Agency, which was set up to borrow on behalf of the State. It has had a quiet time on this front in recent years, with the budget in surplus and a requirement just to keep things ticking over and refinance maturing debt. Now, as the State finances tighten, it may soon be back in business.
Irish Times
15 hours ago
- Irish Times
Can former building giant CRH boss Albert Manifold bring clarity to struggling BP?
BP's appointment of Albert Manifold , former CEO of Irish building materials giant CRH , as its new chairman sparked a muted response from investors. BP shares barely budged, reflecting scepticism over Manifold's lack of oil and gas experience. Reports suggest Manifold was not BP's first choice. At 62, he steps into a role far removed from cement and construction, with an energy giant struggling with debt, strategic confusion, and activist investor pressure. It is, said Panmure Liberum, a 'panic' and 'proper left-field appointment'. The counter argument is that Manifold's credentials speak volumes. CRH shares more than tripled under his 11-year leadership, turning a modest regional player into a US-listed $63 billion (€53.6 billion) global powerhouse through disciplined capital allocation, aggressive portfolio reshaping, and operational efficiency. READ MORE BP shareholders will hope his reputation as a shrewd operator who cuts bloat and boosts cash flow is what the company needs after years of costly missteps in renewables and faltering upstream performance. Critics worry Manifold's skills as a CEO may not translate to chairmanship. However, BP's board clearly values his pragmatic approach and investor-focused track record. On that front, there is already speculation Manifold might consider switching BP's listing to the US, as he did with CRH, aiming for a higher valuation. With BP pivoting back to oil and gas, amid ongoing asset sales and cost-cutting drives, Manifold faces a daunting challenge: to bring strategic clarity and restore shareholder faith. It may be an unconventional hire, but BP shareholders will hope a fresh perspective is just what the doctor ordered.
