The controversial works on the abandoned Luggala visitor centre in the Wicklow mountains are to be removed and the site returned to its natural state.
In 1991 the Office of Public Works (OPW) took the decision to start construction on the Luggala interpretative centre, claiming Wicklow County Council had been consulted on the project. However the Supreme Court held the OPW needed planning permission. In 1995 An Bord Pleanála refused planning permission for the project and the controversial works, estimated to have cost in the region of £1.6 million, were abandoned.
A new development sees the Luggala saga drawing to a close. A Wicklow Mountains National Park Study Report, commissioned by the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht Michael D Higgins, has recommended that the site be fully restored. Locals including Guinness family member and Claddagh Records founder Garech Browne (Garech de Brún) welcome this news,
It will be a great joy to most people in Wicklow, who have enjoyed and who have had the privilege of seeing the mountains as they have been preserved, forever.
Environmentalist Éamon de Buitléar thinks people will be annoyed at the amount of money already spent on the aborted project. From the outset,
We said that it shouldn't go ahead, and it did go ahead, even though it was to go into the courts at that time, the OPW still went ahead with it.
He questions the cost of the reversal works and thinks it time to look at the planning of the whole area.
I don’t think that more money should be spent or thrown after bad money.
The cost of restoring the remote site to its original condition may run into tens of thousands of pounds. In total, the ill fated project could end up costing the taxpayer more than £2 million.
Luggala will go down in history as the development that should never have happened and should never be allowed happen again.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 11 February 1997. The reporter is Damien Tiernan.
