The curious case of the children's science museum

The State is legally committed to building the museum, despite the fact that support for the project seems very limited

In October 2003, the OPW signed a lease with Ireland's Children’s Museum Limited, a charity incorporated in 1998, committing the OPW to construct the planned building, which would then be operated by ICML itself.

In recent weeks, plans to build a children's science museum in the centre of Dublin at a cost of €70m once again became the subject of scrutiny.

They were raised at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and discussed with the Office of Public Works (OPW) before an incredulous room of TDs.

There are several reasons for that disbelief.

For one, no business case has as yet been presented for the building — to be constructed on the site of the National Concert Hall at Earlsfort Terrace — to the Government. The project is proceeding after two separate arbitration proceedings (which means the State is being legally compelled to complete the building).

And, of course, Ireland already has a children's science museum. Explorium was built in 2019 on a 20-acre site in Sandyford, about 10km from the Concert Hall.

It is not just the PAC’s TDs who are nonplussed. Locals who frequent the Victorian Iveagh Gardens which will be heavily affected by the prospective build have been up in arms over the project for years. In 2019, a petition calling for the museum build to be shelved garnered more than 46,000 signatures.

A recurring theme, however, of the recent PAC hearing was the OPW’s repeat assertion that it has no say in whether or not the building is needed — it is obliged to build it and that’s just the way it is.

Why is it so obliged? Because it committed to building it legally — 21 years ago.

This new museum is no pipe dream. It received planning permission from An Bord Pleanála in April and the wheels are in motion, despite no one on the State’s side being particularly enamoured as to what’s happening, least of all the OPW.

Project history

The underlying story is a fascinating one.

The idea had its genesis in the late 1990s, when a group of civic-minded people came together with the idea that a country with a booming economy should have a dedicated children’s science museum in its capital.

Five years later in October 2003, the OPW signed a lease with that grouping — the formal name for the entity is Ireland's Children’s Museum Limited, a charity incorporated in 1998 — committing the OPW to construct the planned building, which would then be operated by ICML itself.

Ali Hewson, wife of U2’s Bono, is on the board of Ireland's Children’s Museum Limited. File Picture: Getty

ICML has a board of trustees comprising the elite of south Dublin’s professional class. Ali Hewson, wife of U2’s Bono, is on the board. So too is epidemiologist Luke O’Neill. One of the country’s most senior barristers Michael Collins has been on the board for nearly 20 years. 

The proposed site for the museum originally was at Military Road in Kilmainham — itself fated to be the source of much separate controversy for the OPW 15 years later when it played host to the new Garda Command Centre for Dublin, a building which cost nearly €90m and ended up being so small that 500 gardaí who had frequented the previous HQ on Harcourt Square had to be reaccommodated around the city.

All might have been well had the financial crisis of 2008 not swept the globe, and left the State utterly bereft of cash. The children’s museum was shelved.

But not forgotten about.

ICML certainly hadn’t forgotten about it. In 2012, the charity referred the case to arbitration in order to force the OPW to honour its contract. That arbitration did not actually transpire as, it is understood, the OPW was given legal advice in 2013 to the effect that it in attempting to pull the project, the organisation didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Still, progress was slow. In 2019, planning permission was granted to launch the build, the third time such a go-ahead had been granted. But the project remained in limbo.

In 2021, the charity referred the OPW to arbitration for a second time, with a final decision handed down, again in the ICML’s favour, in June 2022.

Escalating cost

With planning granted for a fourth time in April of this year, it would appear all systems are go once more. In the 21 years since the OPW made its commitment, the museum has expanded in scope and then some. In 2007, the initial budget for the building was €15m. At present, it is €70m, while the most recent planning granted is for a 9,580 square metre building, twice the size of what had been conceived back in 2003.

Will it actually happen? ICML certainly hopes so. Legally, all is ready to go. But there are complicating factors — not least the fact that ICML appears to be the only entity that wants the museum to proceed.

In 2022, current Fine Gael minister Jennifer Carroll McNeill waxed lyrical about Explorium at the PAC to then OPW chair Maurice Buckley: “When this was agreed initially there was no science museum in Ireland.

 “I have no grá for any particular entity but I have a big difficulty with the State being obliged to build something that already exists. I do not understand the rationale for it,” she said.

That is an opinion which resonates across the political spectrum it seems, with PAC vice chair Catherine Murphy bemoaning the fact that ICML has its “foot on the throat” of the OPW at the committee meeting two weeks ago.

Explorium’s management is understandably cautious in terms of what they say about the city centre project, though managing director Charlie Kelly is on record questioning who is actually in favour of the new museum, other than ICML itself.

Locals who frequent the Victorian Iveagh Gardens which will be heavily affected by the prospective build have been up in arms over the project for years. In 2019, a petition calling for the museum build to be shelved garnered more than 46,000 signatures. File Picture: Nick Bradshaw

Richard Duggan, an accountant and daily frequenter of the Iveagh Gardens, is unequivocal in his attitude to ICML’s plan, describing it as “folly”.

“There’s no parking, no one’s seen any of the economics of it, and it would completely change the vibe, the secrecy of the gardens,” he said. 

“They’d be better off buying Explorium.” 

Realistically, while the OPW may feel it has no choice, the final decision will be made politically. Crucially, as noted at PAC, no one seems to know what department will take responsibility for the new build, a fact which caused Ms Murphy to comment: “I can see it being a case of pass-the-parcel.” 

As the hapless Jim Hacker noted in seminal '80s sitcom Yes, Minister: “Can you blame them, when you can hear it ticking?”