Another Bolder from Dublin City Council #actsofculturalvandalism

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Here's another slab of concrete from DCC trying to pave over the issue of the conrete bolder in the middle of the road at Castle Street. A bare faced attempt to evade accountability and then they try and exploit the 'universal access' issue to butter themselves up.  It took weeks of inquiry and media attention to get this press statement out of them and all it is is another master-class in self serving.  Now we truly know the kind of folk that want to wreck this city.  DCC should do the decent thing and remove this eyesore and visual pollutant immediately if they are to gain any respect and credibility.  Please write to DCC or phone them and register your complaints.  Dublin City  Council

Civic Offices
Wood Quay
Dublin 8.

Tel.: (01) 222 2222 

Email: customerservices@dublincity.ie 

Press Statement DCC

      16^th February, 2013.

 

Statement re temporary traffic management works adjacent to City Hall

A temporary traffic management structure has been erected adjacent to City Hall at the junction of Lord Edward Street/ Cork Hill. It has three flagpoles erected on top and two plaques referencing City Hall and Dublin Castle.  As the structure is temporary it was designed to minimise excavation and ground disturbance.

The structure is intended to change traffic behaviour at this location as a precursor to the development of permanent design proposals for this area. The proposed permanent works will be the subject of a Part 8 process to be considered by the City Council. The present structure will be removed and replaced by the proposals when approved.

The impetus for the temporary proposal came from discussions with the OPW when they requested assistance in their management of Castle Street as a forecourt to the Upper Yard of Dublin Castle during Ireland’s presidency of the EU.  These traffic management issues had been identified as more urgent due to the increased volumes of traffic arising from the use of Dublin Castle during EU Presidency. 

The temporary structure was discussed with a number of departments internally including the Conservation Office and while acknowledging its temporary nature were most concerned to ensure that the permanent proposals would be fully discussed and developed in the context of the Part 8 process. Whereas the present temporary structure deals primarily with the issue of traffic management and pedestrian safety, there are a number of other issues relating to this general area which will have to be addressed by the permanent proposals.

Dublin City Council Roads Design Department had carried out a feasibility study on traffic and pedestrian management on Castle Street which proposed significant footpath widening at the junction of Castle Street and Dame Street. This work will form part of the Part 8 proposal.

It is desirable to provide a fully accessible main entrance to City Hall (present disabled access is via the lower ground floor café entrance at Bernardo Square)  The provision of universal access to City Hall is achievable on the Cork Hill elevation, subject to conservation considerations of the works involved. Equally the provision of disability access to the Rates Office is achievable via the existing door on Castle Street, again subject to conservation considerations of the works involved. The remodelling of levels to achieve universal access to both buildings will form part of the Part 8 proposal.

The provision of a vehicular set down area for City Hall needs to be considered as part of the Part 8 proposal.  

The provision of disabled car parking spaces and the appropriate route from them to City Hall needs to be considered as part of the Part 8 proposal. 

It is envisaged that the permanent paving material for Cork Hill/Castle Street will be Leinster Granite similar to that used recently on Palace Street.  Fair-faced concrete was used for the traffic management structure as it is temporary. 

 

ENDS

An Act of Cultural Vandalism

Architorture, Castle Street, Dublin

Here is the reply to all your queries about the concrete slab that was placed at Castle Street. Read and weep!
Question to Dublin City Manager Feb 2013
Can the Manager issue a report with regard the closure of Dublin Castle to tourists and historical tours. Also can the report include the works that are taking place in Castle Street, Cork Hill entrance to City Hall which is I believe is in relation to erecting flagpoles.

Reply:
The closure of Dublin Castle to tourists and historical tours as required by events in relation to Ireland’s presidency of the EU Is a matter for the Office of Public Works.

Traffic bollards have been placed at the junction of Dame St and Cork Hill to provide more protection to pedestrians. City Hall is on the Dubline walk from Trinity to Kilmainham and the left turn from Parliament St can be very busy, the bollards provide a traffic calming measure.

Dublin City Council has placed a concrete structured behind the bollards as the council felt a strong visual block was also necessary. This structure is temporary and will include three flagpoles. Dublin City Council will address access to City Hall and the council’s Rates Offices through a Part VIII planning application shortly which will incorporate the permanent proposals for this area. The council anticipates that this application will go before the Elected Members in summer 2013 at the earliest.

An Act of No Contrition

Time to kill the myth that Religious congregations and the State cared for people back then or even now. The women of the Magdalene were the raw material, the work force, that gave many of these congregations their economic existence. The poor, kept poor, were always enslaved. This has nothing go to do with religion or God but got to do with enterprise. Enterprises of indoctrination, subservience and slavery. This same construct is evident in the way the struggle of the Magdalene women is being rolled out to the public. The absolute insult and cowardice of the religious congregations involved to merely issue a press apology rather than actually face the public and society is evidence of the indifference of the superiors of the organisation. They are out of touch with humanity. They are out of touch with the pain and suffering of others. They certainly must be dislocated from their own feelings. They truly have removed themselves from their very vocations and are obviously only concerned with Vaticanism and their own preservation and status. They have no cause to exist now, other than their bogus claim of caring and healing and mercy. They certainly showed none today. The media and its personalities and celebrities need to get away from their own sense of patronizing and sentimentalizing the issues and the people who were incarcerated in all of Ireland's institutions and stop projecting their uncomfortability of the issue back onto those who are struggling for truth and accountability. We're not helpless morons with low IQ's to be locked away from society. Step aside and let the truth of the people who were in these institutions emerge uncontaminated and 'unstolen' into society. The exact same modus operandi of the powerful and those who pretend or purport to speak on behalf of the voiceless was again raging all around us today in media circus. That facts of the matter are, that Ireland, along with other despot regimes, carried out cruel and inhumane treatment on vast numbers of it's citizens. The Magdalene Laundry issues are not stand alone. They emerge alongside a culture of abuses that were perpetrated in hundreds of institutions in this State, from nursing homes to mental homes to industrial and reform schools, mother and baby homes, so called orphanages, magdalene laundries, jails, prisons and borstals. Irish society has a fake view of itself as a Christian caring society and prides itself on its grandiose charitable gestures and its great work on behalf of the poor. Yet today, the simplest gesture of all, an apology, was refused and a Nation, its people and those gravely wronged were forsaken.  And those that should have been seen in the practice of atonement, which is their vocation, were hiding behind their convent walls, paid for out of Magdalene labour.  Who now should we command the truth, the whole truth and the honest truth from?  Who now will come to our refuge with the saving words of apology?  Or are we to continue the journey or torment and indifference brought about by the extraordinary arrogance of our present leader, An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and his Government. 

And all of this was done in the name of Jesus.

 

The Continuity of Secrecy and Clandestine Operations

The Continuation of Dark Manoeuvres

True to form the secret Irish State still has not indicated where it will release and at time it will release the long awaited Senator Martin McAleese report into the Magdalene Laundry system.  The continuation of regimes of secrecy is alive and well in the manner this report is being engineered in a controlled fashion into the public domain.  Divide and conquer and separate and drip feed is the order of the day.  The same modus operandi happened around the other reports into the regimes of terror that took place in Ireland's institutions.  The Ryan report, the Ferns report, the Cloyne report, the Raphoe report, and all such reports where the State and the Church were found to be in collusion were all released to a frenzy of media confusion and within a couple of days had died off without any real accountability or consequences for those that had gravely wronged generations of children, women and girls.  No surprise so folks, that Senator McAleese, the State and all those involved in this report are partaking in an architecture of secrecy and bogus confidentiality around such vital public information.  They need to wake up and treat the public and public information with greater respect.  The lack of information of what time and where this report will be released is causing unnecessary anxiety, stress and trauma to tens of thousands of those stigmatized and labeled by Magdalene laundryism through out the world. This whole episode will now cascade into an unnecessary media frenzy and over energized fast-track analysis of its contents rather than any real moment of truth and confirmation of the terrible wrongs that this State and this society perpetrated on the many. What we know for certain though, is that this is merely going to prolong the misery journey for many as to date, all of the former reports have amounted to nothing other than a whitewash and an indifference to human rights abuses. #justiceformagdalenesNOW