Nearly one-third of the lawn at Leinster House is to be ripped up this week to provide "temporary" car parking for TDs and senators while work is proceeding on a £25 million extension to the Oireachtas complex.
Up to 68 of the 200-plus parking spaces around Leinster House will be disturbed when contractors take over a gravelled strip on the northern edge of the lawn and erect hoardings to turn it into a building site. This will involve breaking access through the railings on Merrion Square as well as removing part of the neo-classical screen wall on the north side of the Leinster House, where the extension is to be built.
The preliminary works will also include demolishing some unimportant outbuildings behind the screen wall, formerly occupied by the National College of Art and Design, and a considerable amount of pile-driving.
To compensate for the loss of parking spaces, a sizeable strip of Leinster Lawn directly behind the Merrion Square frontage is to be replaced by a hard surface. Altogether, 30 per cent of the lawn will go. A spokeswoman for the Oireachtas, which went into recess last week, emphasised that this was "only a temporary measure" and she said the lawn would be "fully restored" when the building work was completed.
"It is certainly not the case that the lawn is being destroyed. All that's happening is that part of it is going to be covered in a hard surface to replace the car parking that already exists within the complex."
All serving TDs and senators, as well as previous members of both houses, are entitled to park their cars in the grounds of Leinster House. Members of the Oireachtas press gallery enjoy the same privilege.
The main contract for the extension, which will provide 10,000 square metres of additional office space and committee rooms for the Oireachtas, is due to start in October and is expected to take two years.
The Heritage Council, An Taisce, the Irish Georgian Society and the Dublin Civic Group were all consulted about the scheme, which was also available for public inspection at the Office of Public Works. Alterations to Leinster House are exempt from the normal planning process for security reasons, but during the two-month period when the plans were exhibited, "nobody came to see them", one source said.
The new building, designed by the OPW in association with consultant architects Dolan and Donnelly, is to be erected behind the single-storey screen wall which links Leinster House with the National Gallery.
Mr David Byers, senior architect with the OPW, said it was accepted that the project was "a major modern intrusion into a historic precinct", but it had been care fully designed to minimise its visual impact.
Mr Martin Cullen, Minister of State at the OPW, said one long-term solution to the parking problem would be to install an under ground car park beneath Leinster Lawn and put the cars out of sight altogether.
