Sky Garden debacle - A mess that turned into a disaster

PUBLIC ridicule, controversy and acute embarrassment surround the costly affair of the multimillion-euro Sky Garden that won a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in June but which, fully six months later, lies mouldering in Cork awaiting its long overdue relocation at the city’s quiet riverside park.

Amid all the hullabaloo engulfing this expensive misadventure, a deep gulf of reality separates the leafy summer environs of Chelsea and the harsh economic winter now gripping Cork, where services are being cut back and heated debate continues over the future of the contentious development destined to be suspended high above ground level in Fitzgerald Park.

In this era of austerity, no doubt most people, especially the hard-pressed citizens of Cork, would agree with the sentiments voiced over the weekend by the garden’s designer, Diarmuid Gavin, who called for a halt to spending any more taxpayer money on the enterprise.

Mr Gavin also expressed embarrassment at being associated with the venture, the cost of which is disputed, and questioned the morality of spending more money revamping Fitzgerald Park in order to incorporate the overhanging steel pod inspired by the film Avatar.

In an interview with Marian Finucane, he said he was astonished but proud to receive the commission to build a contemporary garden for the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show.

The intention was to put it on permanent display in Cork as the centrepiece of a planned “world-class horticultural tourist trail” to be developed at Fitzgerald Park by 2012.

The cost was to be met by Fáilte Ireland (83%) and Cork City Council.

Unfortunately, it seems a breakdown of trust has blighted relationships between those involved. What began as a positive, if an arguably questionable project, has degenerated into a bitter squabble.

Despite the laudable intentions behind the original concept, the whole affair has turned into an unmitigated disaster.

The original objective of using this ambitious concept to raise the international profile of both Cork and Ireland has descended into an embarrassing public relations fiasco. Instead of an invitation list being drawn up, the lawyers are exchanging legal missives.

The only conclusion to be drawn from this catastrophe, a mess that could and should have been anticipated and avoided at the outset, is that somewhere along the line, those involved lost sight of the vital issue of defining overall responsibility for managing a project involving taxpayers’ money.

Each side is now busy blaming the other and washing their hands of responsibility.

Behind the scenes, the obvious inference is that neither public body appears to have had a handle on how this project should have been managed. Moreover, it is moot whether Mr Gavin’s company was used to dealing with the bureaucracy of Irish public bodies which are bound in red tape when it comes to paying out public money.

The tragedy of this affair is that what began as a good idea has become a shambles.

There is an onus on all concerned to get around the table in a meaningful bid to salvage something positive from this debacle. In the public interest they have a bounden duty to put their differences aside and give beleaguered taxpayers tangible value for their hard-earned euro.