Seanad debates

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Adjournment Matters

Residential Institutions Issues

2:50 pm

Photo of Seán SherlockSeán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising the matter. I take the point he makes about Letterfrack. The building is currently being used as a furniture and craftwork school. I have visited the village of Letterfrack. Sometimes out of misery and turmoil comes something that is creative. The folk memory of people who live in the area of Letterfrack will ensure what happened there will never be forgotten. I note his point about the creation of a physical memorial in that region.

The provision of a memorial to victims of institutional abuse was one of the recommendations of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. The Ryan report noted the importance of the State's formal recognition of the abuse that occurred and the suffering of victims being preserved in a permanent place. A committee was appointed in October 2009 to oversee the design and commissioning of the memorial and a budget of €500,000 was set aside. The committee was chaired by Sean Benton, a former chairman of the OPW. The committee consulted widely during 2010 and it then pursued a two-stage international competition in conjunction with the OPW. The competition was launched in July 2011 and the design brief noted that there were no preconceived ideas regarding the design of the memorial. The OPW agreed to make the site adjacent to the Garden of Remembrance available as a permanent location for the memorial in the event of it taking the form of a physical artefact. However, entrants were not limited to this site and could make a submission for other State-owned sites. Six of the 32 submissions received in the first stage of the competition were short listed; four of these short-listed entries were proposals for the site in Parnell Square. Having met with the short listed entrants and assessed their detailed, specific proposal, the competition jury unanimously decided to award the commission to Studio Negri and Hennessy & Associates, for the Journey of Light memorial. The jury felt that the manner in which the proposed memorial integrated with the Garden of Remembrance would provide an enduring symbol of lost innocence to inspire future generations to ensure the protection of all children.

Following the announcement of the competition winner in July 2012, the OPW sought and received planning permission from Dublin City Council, subject to a range of conditions, in May 2013. The grant of permission was appealed by a third party and An Bord Pleanála refused planning permission for the proposal in November, as the Senator outlined in his submission. The board believed that the proposed memorial would have had an adverse impact on the setting, character and function of the Garden of Remembrance.

We sought the views of the memorial committee on the decision's implications. The committee has advised that the journey of light proposal is not transferable to another site, as it is inextricably linked with the Garden of Remembrance. Neither does it consider that the board's decision should be appealed, as it would be divisive and not in the best interests of the project. It believes that any new competition should be open to conceptual and site-specific proposals and that a central Dublin location should be identified as a cost neutral basis with appropriate zoning. The officials in my Department are consulting the OPW on the identification of a suitable central Dublin location.

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