Department doubtful about council’s plan for a new interpretive centre on Bull Island

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has raised “doubts as to the viability of providing the proposed Discovery Centre” on North Bull Island.

The council is planning to apply to An Bord Pleanála early this year for permission to build the centre, according to its capital programme for 2024–26. It says the project will cost €18.7 million, and be complete in 2027.

The centre would “illustrate and interpret the natural, cultural and built heritage of the North Bull Island Nature Reserve and Dublin Bay”, according to the council.

Despite the department’s doubts about the project, the council has indicated that it plans to forge ahead.

For years, Les Moore, the city parks superintendent, has been pushing the project forward, and giving presentations to councillors on its progress.

“Fundamentally, through the Discovery Centre we want to help people understand and appreciate this special place [Dublin Bay]. We want to inspire them to take care of it,” according to the 2019 update from Moore and project manager Donncha Ó Dúlaing.

A 2021 update on the project says the island gets about 1 million visitors a year and the centre wouldn’t add much to this. “Modest visitor numbers being envisaged (45,000 in year 1 of operation) and the majority of these being those already visiting the Island.”

However, local conservationists have raised concerns about the impact on the island of building a new interpretive centre, and the visitors it would attempt to draw in.

If the council wants people to take better care of the environment on Bull Island, rather than spend millions building a new centre on it, it should ban dogs – and enforce that ban, says Sean Byrne.

“Insofar as the council has managed the area, they’ve managed it as a park, for recreational purposes, not a conservation area,” says Byrne, who lives nearby and says he has regularly gone for walks on the island for 30 years.

A delicate environment

The council has been working on putting together its climate action plan for 2024 to 2029, and members of its climate action, environment and energy committee discussed the latest draft last Wednesday.

The council had put a draft of the plan out for consultation between September and November of last year. And on Wednesday, the members of the committee heard a presentation on the submissions the council got as part of this consultation.

Among them, though not discussed at the meeting, was the submission Edel Griffin, of the Department of Housing.

The draft climate action plan says that “The Dublin Bay UNESCO Biosphere Discovery Centre … will provide people with the opportunity to learn about our natural heritage and how we can all take steps to conserve our environment.”

North Bull Island is in a special protection area for the conservation of wild bird species, and one of the 714 biosphere reserves – “learning places for sustainable development” – in UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves. It also hosts two nature reserves.

In her submission to the council, Griffin wrote that “The Department is not confident that if the provision of the Discovery Centre were to attract more visitors to Bull Island that there might not be increased adverse effects”.

An environmental report the council commissioned consultants to do on the draft climate action plan notes, she pointed out, that proposed location of the centre “is within protected habitats such as Marram Dunes”.

“The construction phase elements of this project are likely to have significant impacts on the receiving environment if incorrectly designed and managed,” the report says.

“Moreover, it is well documented that Bull Island and the protected habitats are under severe threat from visitor movements and associated damage,” it says.

Given all this, she suggested that the centre should be removed from the climate action plan. But the council chief executive’s response says he plans to keep it in.

“Dublin City Council views the centre as a key in drawing attention to the need to protect and conserve the sensitive habitat,” the response says.

Also, the centre’s part of a broader “Dublin Bay Biosphere work programme” by Failte Ireland, Dublin Port, Fingal County Council, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and Dublin City Council, it says.

“The Discovery Centre plays a role in delivering on our shared objectives of creating employment that supports emerging social enterprises, especially those in ecotourism,” it says.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said by email on Monday that “Given the Ministers role as a statutory consultee under planning legislation the Department cannot comment further at this stage on the proposal.”

“If a planning application for the Biosphere Discovery Centre is made the Department will examine all relevant documents provided at that stage and may provide observations to assist the consent authority in their decision making process,” he said.

Complicated

Byrne, who lives nearby and says he walks several times a week on Bull Island, said he was happy to hear about the Department of Housing’s concerns about the centre.

“I’m very pleased to see that the department have raised the adverse environmental impact on the biosphere in their submission,” he said.

Local Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney says that if the department doesn’t want the project to happen, the council will find it harder to get it built.

It’s unclear exactly how the council plans to pay for the centre at this point. The capital programme shows €5 million of that coming from “Grants”, €7 million from “Misc Income”, and does not explain where the rest would come from.

An early presentation suggested funding would come from Fáilte Ireland and philanthropic donations.

But even if the council doesn’t plan to go to the department for funding to build the centre, the department’s reservations could still complicate things, Cooney says.

It will need to get the go-ahead from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), she says, which is part of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

The island falls within the North Bull Island Special Protection Area, which is overseen by the NPWS.

If the council wants to build a centre where people can learn about Dublin Bay and how special it is, it should put it somewhere else, Cooney says. Not on Bull Island.

“I can’t see why they can’t look at alternative locations,” Cooney said by phone on Tuesday.

For example, it could be built across the bridge on the mainland, near the seafront entrance to St Anne’s Park, Cooney said.

Cameras could be set up on the island, so visitors to the centre could watch the birds and other wildlife and habitats, without disturbing them, she said.