Cork City Council urged to ‘drop veil of secrecy’ over garden costs

AN outspoken critic of Diarmuid Gavin’s controversial €2.3 million Sky Garden has called on Cork’s city manager to “drop the veil of secrecy” over the council’s involvement in the project.

Worker’s Party councillor Ted Tynan, who has described the garden’s signature pod as like the “chassis of an old tractor”, spoke out after Cork City Council refused a Freedom of Information (FoI) request from this newspaper to release documents relating to the project.

The FoI request was made on June 7 following controversy about the cost to the taxpayer of the Chelsea Flower Show gold medal-winning garden, along with stinging criticism from Mr Gavin about how the council handled the project in the run-up to the flower show.