Council spends almost €100k storing Sky Garden plants

Cork City Council has spent almost €100,000 storing plants and trees from the Diarmuid Gavin-designed Sky Garden.

And the council, which is overseeing the installation of the €2.3m taxpayer-funded garden in a city park, is facing a further €6,000 per month storage bill, backdated to last October, until works start next month.

The details are contained in the Local Government Audit Service’s statutory audit report on the council’s books for the year ending Dec 31, 2011, which the Irish Examiner has seen. The garden project has been blighted by controversy since it won gold at the Chelsea Flower Show in May 2011.