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.

As relations deteriorated between the council and Mr Gavin in the weeks after the win, the celebrity gardener slated the local authority for its handling of the entire scheme and called for it to be scrapped. The council defended its role before cutting all ties with Mr Gavin.

The garden, which was relocated to Ireland in May 2011, has been in storage since. Its signature flying pod, slung from a crane, is being stored in Cork’s Showgrounds, and the plants were initially stored and maintained in a Kildare nursery.

The auditor’s report shows the council, up to October last, had spent €98,000 storing the plants. It also found that the council did not employ any tendering procedures before securing the services of the nursery.

When this nursery indicated in Jan 2012 it could no longer store the plants and trees, they were moved to a nursery in Cork.

The local authority said it had to use the emergency basis provisions of procurement practice to arrange for the alternative nursery to continue the storage arrangement.

City manager Tim Lucey welcomed the auditor’s findings in relation to the Sky Garden — which is being 83% funded by Fáilte Ireland. “The matter of the transportation, storage, and maintenance of significant elements of phase one of the project identifies particular circumstances associated with the management of this project at that time.”

He also welcomed the fact the report confirmed that all costs associated with phase one of the project were appropriately validated and accounted for. He said phase two is progressing in line with requirements.

Work is to begin next month with completion in the summer.