A project to restore buildings and improve amenities at the National Botanic Gardens is completed.
The new visitor facilities are now open at the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin, where a major restoration programme is now finished.
It's home to 20,000 species of plants. Many of them exotic. Some extremely rare.
Most of the curvilinear glasshouses, designed by Dublin iron master Richard Turner in the mid-19th century, have been restored. Facilities for visitors have also been enhanced. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Heritage Affairs Sheila de Valera opened a new visitor centre. The National Botanic Gardens now has a lecture theatre, an information point and a tea room.
The remaining work to be done includes the restoration of the palm house, which was built in the 1880s. One of the species housed in the palm house is now extinct in the wild.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 12 September 2000. The reporter is Walt Kilroy.
