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TRANSPORT AND ENVIRONMENT Minister Eamon Ryan has agreed that the €335,000 price tag of a bicycle shed at Leinster House was “an incredibly expensive cost”.
Yesterday figures released under the Freedom of Information Act found that €335,000 of public money was spent to install bike parking spaces at the Oireachtas buildings on Kildare St, in Dublin.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) said the high cost was because a high-quality structure was needed due to the sensitive location. The installation was part of a number of upgrades taking place at Leinster House by the OPW.
Speaking today, Eamon Ryan said he looked forward to engaging with the OPW as to why the bike shed was so expensive and added that, he believes, the Government should review the cost of the parking spaces should they be installed elsewhere.
“If it’s so expensive, that will reduce the amount of bicycle parking spaces that we get in,” Ryan said. “I know, it’s a sensitive site – they’ve got to get it right, they’ve their own resources, but I must admit, I myself was shocked when I saw the price.”
A breakdown of costs from the Office of Public Works shows that €322,282 was spent on the main construction and installation project.
A further €2,952 was spent on archaeological services while €10,816 was paid for quantity surveying services and “contract administration services”.
The OPW said: “The bicycle shelter is a new structure located within the setting of Leinster House, a protected structure of national importance.
“In response to the character of the historic setting a well-designed structure with an appropriate use of high-quality materials and finish were required,” it added.
Ryan previously welcomed the introduction of the new bike shed, at the time claiming that it was an example of what can be done at other places around the country to reduce the number of people who drive to work.
Asked today if he believes that this incident could give the ‘Active Travel Scheme’ a bad name, Ryan said he hopes it would not and that he is engaging with the National Transport Authority about adding more bus shelters around the country.
“But if they’re all that expensive, we won’t deliver,” the transport minister said, adding that the Government must question the OPW on the pricing of such infrastructure.
“I think it’s too expensive. Maybe, perhaps, they have a reason but I wasn’t aware of it. We need to show that we spend the public’s money wisely. And that sort of cost – it seems to me – very, very high.”
With reporting by Ken Foxe
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I can buy a house for that price in some parts of the country.
@David Connell: In any part of the country
@David Connell: not for much longer if we stay going the way we are it’ll eventually cost that just for a site,shouldn’t take long.
@David Connell: I doubt it! A derelict farm house maybe.
@David Connell: I am building houses for less than that
Germany voting in right wing government is just the start…
@Andrew Martin: but does the bike shelter not protect you from heil as well as rain?
@Andrew Martin: I think you will find Germany DIDN’T vote in a right wing government, at least not yesterday.
@Andrew Martin: People will vote here for FFG for generations to come
@Andrew Martin: It was actually Thuringia in the state elections not Germany
@DJ D: and even at that, they only got a minority, which means the majority of voters voted for other options
@Shaun Gallagher: not much alternative. Over the last year or so SF, the great white hope, have been repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot…
@Shaun Gallagher: Your are utterly out of touch
@Pat Barry: I think you will find that scenario in most elections where there are multiple options.
@Andrew Martin: right wing will get into power because of government’s stupidity and refusal to listen to public opinion. Act now and prevent far right from gaining momentum, you cannot just go into places like coolock and force people to accept huge numbers of unvetted people into the area in which they live. The government needs to take its head out of its backside and engage with the public and resolve issues before they escalate and wrong element gets a foothold.
@Gaelactico: more far right shooting them with fgff lending a hand, everyone got the referendums wrong.
And every party agreed on immigration.
@Peter Connaughton: My point is that they did not achieve a majority, which means that they were not voted into power in that German state, despite the far right claims that they have been. It is a bit like how SF supporters claim SF won the last GE here when, in reality, they did nothing of the sort. Otherwise, they would be in government. The majority of Irish voters of the time voted for other options, and those other options led to the current coalition government.
@Andrew Martin: Headline from the Sun? Only two states in East Germany voted.
@Andrew Martin: wow that’s some jump you have done there
@Gaelactico: we have no other option than sf and left parties to keep sf in check. Can’t let this waste go one.
@Andrew Martin: delighted to say young girl, in the parnell St attack left hosp today.
Far right said she had died some months back. Maybe they would now like to apologise to her family publicly. And all those who shared the false news.
Wishing her continued health.
Hope she gets all the services she will require.
rich coming from a man who’s spent millions on useless buses we can charge ,generators in dublin port that can’t be transported,bicycle lanes all over the country that nobody uses,cut funding on roads that badly need it….this morning he was boasting on what a great job the public service did on the bike shed embracing the climate change adgenda..now he’s noticed the backlash and trying to find someone to blame ..lala land is where this man spends his days
@William O leary: if you follow joe rogan in my opinion you need to go back to school, lovers find intelligence interesting
@William O leary: He didn’t order the buses or fail to plan for charging them but keep blaming him for all that if you want. You don’t sound like you’ll ever be a bike lane user either
@Mick Duvanny: whether he’ll ever be a bike lane user is nothing to do with it, he’s absolutely right in everything he says and the minister for TRANSPORT may not have ordered the buses directly or f@ck+d up the charging but he is responsible for ensuring that competent people oversee how the multi millions of hard earned public money is spent, WTFU.
@William O leary: Useless buses? Living in the past are we? https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-news/151009/dublin-bus-announces-completion-charging-infrastructure/
@William O leary: Doing ‘something’ at least flies n the face on contemporary Irish politics. Eamon’s only interested in central Dublin and is not bothered with any of Irelands real transport problems, unfortunately.
Who built it, Ticketmaster?
@Eric Gaffney: BAM. They’ll get it right one of these days. Keep giving them the contracts.
@Eric Gaffney: It’s a real shame the journal don’t have any actual journalists on the payroll. Imagine if they could go and question our paid politicians about this fiasco. What say you, Muiris? Do you consider yourself an actual journalist?
@YKwkSIqW: Activists, nothing else.
When the bike shed story first appeared in the media I thought it was designed by Dermot Bannon and built for RTÉ staff then I learned it was built for Éamon Ryan’s bike – unreal price for a glorified bus shelter
@Chaotic State: saw it on the News yesterday. One bike in it.
Who signed off on this
@Martin Ridge: As per usual follow the money. I would be willing to bet someone in government knows a friend of a friend of a friend and they would be the ones who benefited
@Martin Ridge: paddy the plasterer
@Derek Poutch: IF YOU HAVE A MINUTE TELL US ALL YOU KNOW
I’d love to see the tender process here.
It looks like a couple of connected bus shelters.
@Desmond Lyons: and they cost 15,000 a pop too.
Watched him on the News this evening,smug grin on his face, saying he was surprised. He was praising it only a few days ago & we are funding this Man & his 10 Special Advisors, it’s Incompetence of the highest level from him as usual. The Greens are destroying the Country, another Hotel in our Community gone from Tourism to IPA’s, it is a weekly event now. Everything Eamon, Catherine & Roderic turn their hands to ends up in a shot show.
@SV3tN8M4: they haven’t long left…the greens are history
@SV3tN8M4: another hotel in your community? Bloody hell, how many have you got?
@SV3tN8M4: roderic would make an excellent breeze block hes a wasted talent now.
@Maurice Whelan: they all should go, greens not alone in wasting taxpayer money.
@SV3tN8M4: If ‘supercilious’ had a face Ryan and Rodders would have to compete: they outdo all others in this regards, perhaps with the one exception of the ‘woman with the stupid hair’ (hint, has a donkey-fringe and knows everything)
Nothing incredible about a absolute thieving disgrace, these entitled users and thier lackeys is agghhh
These people have no shame whatsoever!
An absolute disgrace all that money for 18 spaces for bikes a joke government should be brought into touch and that ryan hailing the bike shed yesterday now it’s a different story when it’s found out the cost goid luck if this government is ever voted in again I give up
@JOHN O CONNELL: in fairness he has been known to dose off in the past and his advice on growing lettuce on window sills during covid would actually have saved a trip to the local pet shop if you had a rabbit or hamster, FACT.
From an observational point its interesting that we always get stories from the media and governments on the dangers of the far right, but never the far left…..From a 20th century point of view the far left in Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and even the Nazis, as they came to power under the title of the Socialists workers party of Germany, committed genocide at a far higher rate than right wing governments, where South America would be the best examples of genocidal regimes.
@Dere: The Woke manual states: Left Wing good, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot.
Right Wing bad, Hitler, Mussolini.
@Dere: They could have called themselves whatever they liked but they were never socialist.
China and Russia are communist, different again.
Chile and other dictators in South America were all right wing and they killed millions too. Venezuela was the opposite.
@Brian Hunt: Collins Dictionary states that the word woke means “Someone who is woke is very aware of social and political unfairness”
nowhere does is left wing or Maoist!!!!
Being “woke” means you care about others, in my mind a good thing.
Not is is used by people to make a point, and missing the point completely!
@Gary Kearney: but their followers that carried out the orders came from the collective mindset of the left.
They may have had “Socialist” in the name of the party, but if you look into their beliefs, you will see that the Nazi party believed in what today would be called far-right policies. Also, take into account that they actually sent those with true Socialist and Communist beliefs and connections to the Concentration camps along with their Jewish victims. Now I do agree that the “Far-Left” are no angels, but at the moment, the “Far-Right” is the bigger danger with the belief that race matters. Too reminiscent of Nazi Party ideals and beliefs in a master race
@Dere: The Nazi party were not left wing. Sure they might have claimed to be socialists but none of their policies were left wing. It’s like how North Korea calls itself the democratic people’s republic of Korea when it couldn’t be further from a democracy. Hitler hated socialists and communists. He was a far right capitalist, there was no social safety net in nazi Germany, if you weren’t able to work and generate profit you were considered less than worthless. The Nazi party operated like a heartless corporation.
You’re confusing socialism with a dictatorship, they’re not the same thing. Socialist policies give us things like free education.
Who signed off on this expense?? No good looking into it now but that seems to be par for the course for this lot.
@Lydia Mcloughlin: sure he only became aware of it there in fairness,he had dozed off temporarily again.
And we’re not corrupt?
@Navanman: corruption implies intelligence of some sort. Incompetent is more like it
Hang on. We got evicted from our Dublin house and had to move to Kilkenny because we couldn’t afford the down payment on another home, but THIS is ok? And will anyone be disciplined for it? Of course not!
Thanks a pantload, government.
Over €8 Billion given to UNWRA to be used by Hamas, €300K + on a bike shed, yet they want the people of rural Ireland to go blind by withdrawing funding for cataract surgery. No one will be held responsible, yet Im sure there is a Minister in charge of the OPW. There should be a fraud squad investigation into this deliberate abuse of public funds.
https://www.thejournal.ie/oireachtas-printer-4927594-Dec2019/
https://extra.ie/2018/09/03/news/coffee-table-irish-embassy-london
Along with this house/bikeshed, please feel free add any more examples of taking the pish.
@Padraic O’ Sullivan:
€6.2 bn on NGOs ”NGOs Nonprofit Sector Analysis.€6.2 billion State funding”: https://benefactslegacy.ie 2021
€1.4 bn on OVERSEAS AID ”In 2022, Ireland’s Overseas Development Aid spend was €1.4 billion”https://www.ireland.ie/en/irish-aid/news-and-publications.
€237m on MODULAR HOMES for foreigners. ”The estimated cost of delivering 700 MODULAR UNITS is now €237m – eg €338,571 per unit. Crucially the additional 200 units (increasing from 500 to 700) now appear to have an average cost of €407,500 per unit.” RTE 8-2-24.
”Government officials resisted moves to end €1m-a-month spend on hotel accommodation for Ukrainian pets” Irish Mirror 11-4-24.
”Some of the new tents by the Grand Canal have been erected inside the fencing, which was installed by Waterways Ireland at a cost of €30,000 per week.” RTE 20-8-24.
”RTÉ to receive €725m over three years” Journal.ie. 23-7-24
”HSE dumps €86.5m worth of Covid vaccines as taxpayer foots the bill” Irish Independent 31-8-24.
The new Children’s Hospital has nearly quadrupled in price from €650m to €2.25bn.
As reported by The Irish Mirror in February 2023, the Aontú leader was advised by Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman that his department had bought 34 properties for asylum seeker accommodation but that only one was in use. “These properties are a mix of two/three/four-bed apartments and houses and some larger properties (10 bed plus),” he said.Irish Mirror 1-2-24
@Dave Callaghan: NGOs do most of the work the government would have to do if the NGOs did not exist.
Covid vaccines were dumped buy every country when they ran out of date!
The Ukrainian pets are with their owners, should they be put down instead.
Ireland has international agreements to keep in relation to international aid. Simple as that.
Yes the childrens hospital is a farce and we are all well aware of that.
People moved fences, bring down the government so!!
@Padraic O’ Sullivan: panic buying ventilators, dumping millions of out of date covid vaccine, Thornton Hall, the first planning for the children’s hospital, water meters contract, I’d say there’s a waisted billion in that list
Brought to you by the same construction company that gave u the children’s hospital and the Cork Opera house
Ivana Bacik doing a Dee on it & gone into hiding & no comment from her or her party, probably because she was one of those calling for this. Can you imagine what the cost of her promised 1 Million homes would come in at.
@SV3tN8M4: She was actually, only the other day, trying to keep her seat by greenwashing¬
You couldn’t make this stuff up .. Corruption is everywhere….
its nearly as bad as the 30k a week they are spending on fencing along the grand canal. no doubt a sweetener for one of their buddies.
10 grand for a quantity surveyor to build a bicycle shed…I built a 4 bedroom house without one and it cost a lot less than 335 grand and didn’t use one of these snake oil salesmen.
Kieran O’Donnell Fine Gael TD is the Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, (appointed in April 2024), not Eamon Ryan. Has anyone asked Minister O’Donnell for comment?
OPW all their accounts to be seen by the Public Accounts Committee.
@Annette: That would just be another waste of time and money. Look how the RTE debacle turned out, they’ve been wasting tax payers money for decades and refused to be held to account after months of PAC interviews. So the government has awarded them with even more tax payers money.
@Annette: My point is to name and shame. In fairness to the RTE scandal, they did get rid of some of the top earners. The pay, even though still high, is not as eye watering as it was. It can only help, I’d say this isn’t the only over blown waste of Irish taxpayers’ money by the OPW.
Maybe all government agencies should go before the Public Accounts Committee. They should all be held responsible for the people’s money.
The biggest scandal is the Royal hospital in kilmainham being used as the car park for james hospital staff with a 20 year old shuttle bus costing about 15 thousand a week every week and it’s empty most of the time
@Stephen Byrne: and still children’s hosp not open.and not wheelchair accessible in parts. imagine.
But as usual no one will be held accountable or lose their jobs others will jump up and down for a few weeks until it’s forgotten about and swept under the carpet until the next over spend. Taxes through the roof petrol, diesel, electricity hybrid and electric vehicles catching fire all over the world. Immigrants being brought in to the country with nowhere to put them, over 11,000 Irish homeless and know where to put them ! Is this what we are paying for with our taxes and levies because it’s not good enough !
@Paul Bennison: and set to get worse guaranteed with what’s running the country lining its pockets asleep at the wheel not giving a damn about long term consequences. The health service and pension system will be in absolute peril as years go on. Huge increase in numbers entering the country,lower birth rate and more and more needing help and assistance as years progress. Reckless and incompetent doesn’t begin to describe it. If they would only have taken a foothold on housing and immigration policy when it was needed we wouldn’t be in this mess. Future generations are lost now they’ll have to head abroad or struggle week to week.
@Paul Bennison: 14700 homeless this week give or take.4500kids.
@Colette Byrne: they’ve also admitted homelessness is accelerating obviously not declining so we haven’t seen anything yet. Uk is in dire straits so we’ll be joining them obviously in terms of housing the system there presently is only the very most extreme can be helped the rest have to stay homeless unless they have absolute dire circumstances and even at that it cannot be guaranteed.
Half the cost was probably the daily parking or clamping charges around that kip the contractor would have been paying lol.
€335000 for a bike shed,how much to change a light bulb there ? Green’s,/Government have to go,they will break the country,they don’t care about the people outside the M50
@Mark Galvin: Just pointing out the minister in charge of the OPW is actually from FG. The greens need to go too of course, but they’re surprisingly not responsible for this one.
Add that to the billions these muppets have waisted. And people say sf would bankrupt the country. Pull the other one
@Damien Leahy: ‘lessons learned’
And what about the bike lane in Fairview which went on for years and waaayyyy over budget?’vn
@Shane Cormican: Seven million for the bike bridge at North Strand!
@Shane Cormican: and no Dublin bike stand in sight ?
Don’t be worrying it will blow over in time and we can build a proper one
How would someone go about looking for expenditure of each party in the current term of office please , the greens must be way ahead of all parties give them monies to keep them quiet
Joke
Pity he didn’t ask the price before the shed was built
@Patrick MC Dermott: he was having a light snooze at that time and was initially aware of it upon awakening however it took a few moments…
It’s daylight robbery, and every day, we are being told by bots what a great job this government is doing.
Seriously. Kids can’t get teachers.
My friends 8 year old reeled off over 8 teachers left her school this summer for Australia well except one who was taking time off. Crazy 8 in one school.
What a bunch of crooked C^#TS
No S Sherlock and I’m no fan believe me but the cost of imprisoning a non violent person is a joke to me when the DPP can’t even charge my r@pists.
This is no ordinary bike shelter this is a green party environmental safeguard initiative. The impact the bike shed will have to the environment and basic overall health benefits to the cyclist’s and general public will be extremely beneficial. It will not only reduce emissions but also traffic congestion and road traffic incidents. Roderic and eamon should certainly receive support from inside the dail for this fantastic achievement. It will incentivise bike shed creation throughout various sectors and public outlets throughout the country. A proud day for sensibility and great use of public expenditure with lasting results.
@Paddy C: it has a sauna and room for a pony also. Might have sky sports also.
Journalists should have run the story when OPW provided the quote. Not after it’s paid.
What is the name of the company that built this bike stand and where are the other traders to compare
Who votes for this man ?
By any chance, was it built by the same company that is building the Children’s Hospital?
Follow the money.
Does it come with allotments for growing lettuce.
I’d say Eamonn Ryan knows more about this bike shed than he’s letting on. He’s been called out on it now leading up to election year and he knows it won’t look good, so he wants the OPW to explain the absurd spend on a typical Green party spend item. The OPW never thought of installing a bike shed here, before the Green Party took up residence. Hmmmmmm, I wonder why ?
Ps. Before anyone mistakenly says it, I’m not anti Green Party, I’m just anti waste of money……
Does Eamonn realise its taxpayers money he’s playing around with
The only skill this gov is good at, is creating crisis after crisis. Gov of destruction & reckless spending.
Architecturally designed bicycle shelter : € 5,600.00 ex-VAT. Made in Ireland too. https://www.pittman.ie/products/brooklyn-bike-shelter
You can buy a brand new ‘architecturally designed’ bus shelter (for that’s what a bicycle shelter is), for €7,000 and have it in 3 weeks. Order it online: https://www.pittman.ie/products/conviviale-bus-shelter
Never ever vote in either right or left to the extreme!look at any history!!really!! Yeah
… and what’s the taxpayer funded inquiry on the Govt tit going to cost?
What happens if there are 19or 20 bikes next week – is that another €100,00 for an extension?
Opw thieves
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