What’s the best way to tell area residents about plans for a new asylum shelter nearby?
The government should tell communities directly about plans for new asylum shelters, some activists and politicians say.
A new library is part of a trio of services local representatives say Donabate needs, also including a primary care centre, and a Garda station.
“It reminds me of the Iveagh Markets,” says Sinn Féin Councillor Máire Devine. “It’s neglect.”
Instead, the council is looking at keeping services in the existing Phibsboro library, and extending it.
Dublin City Council is already working on a plan for a new library just up the road.
A local group had been pushing the council to get into the building, to make sure it was being cared for – fearing something like this might happen.
The draft plan as it stands includes extending the library, adding an open square, and some changes to make the area a bit less “vehicularly-focused”.
It would replace the one-storey, 300 sqm, 1950s-era building with a 1,000 sqm, two-storey version.
Construction inflation has scotched its push to renovate it and reopen as a library, said a council spokesperson.
As Covid restrictions continue, and charity shops remain closed, makeshift book exchanges on footpaths and in parks offer some literary give and take.
Recently reopened after a year-long €3.5 million refurbishment, the library in Coolock offers everything from books and computers to meeting spaces and 3D printers.
These were among the issues Dublin City Councillors discussed on Monday evening at City Hall, during their January monthly meeting.
A company offered to raise private funds to pay for the project, but hasn’t – and with the council now facing growing costs, councillors want closer monitoring.
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