“Significant delays” and “exceptionally high building inflation” are being blamed for a decade-long plan to build new tearooms at a Dublin city centre park going over time and over budget.
The 2024 audit report on Dublin City Council (DCC) found the costs for consultant architects for the Merrion Square tearooms had risen from €246,000 in 2015 to €655,000 in 2024.
The last known approved budget for the entire project was €6.1 million in 2024. The local authority declined to tell The Irish Times what the final cost of the project was expected to be.
In response to the audit, DCC acknowledged the new Merrion Square tearooms project was “not now fully compliant with council, national and EU procurement regulations”, especially the rules around how much the value of a contract can be changed after it was awarded.
RM Block
The tearooms, which were originally proposed 10 years ago, had been due to be completed in spring this year and then autumn. It is still not complete.
The project, which sits on the northern side of Merrion Square near the existing playground and Oscar Wilde sculpture, is expected to feature a cafe, public bathrooms including baby-changing facilities and a south-facing terrace.
The audit of DCC said the increased spend from the original consultant architect contract from €246,000 to €655,000 “is not in compliance with council, national and EU procurement regulations”. In response to the audit, DCC agreed it was not “fully” compliant with the rules.
“This project has been subject to significant delays over the past 10 years from preliminary design to construction during a period of exceptionally high building inflation,” it said.
DCC said the “main reasons for the uplift in fees” were delays caused by the Covid pandemic, an increase in “design scope” and inflation.
The construction contractor for the tearoom was tendered in 2022 at €4.6 million, and construction costs in 2024 were up to €921,000.
[ New cafe and terrace under construction in Merrion Square ]
Separately, the audit flagged that the council had spent €2.3 million in 2024 on the empty Avalon House, which is not expected to provide homeless accommodation again until the middle of 2027 “dependent” on planning permission.
The audit also said there was a high level of compliance with procurement rules among those providing emergency accommodation for homeless people, but 21 providers were found to be non-compliant.
“The expenditure incurred on these suppliers in the provision of homeless services for the 2024 period was €41.4 million,” the audit report said.
The same audit identified significant debt that had either gone unclaimed or uncollected by the city council.
This included €268 million of “government debtors” in 2024. This was an increase from €236 million in 2023. The audit said “this level of debt is significant when compared with the 2022 figures of €120 million, representing an increase of 123 per cent increase on the 2022 figures”.
In its response to the audit, DCC said it had made “significant progress” on the issue in 2025, with “most” of the €105 million worth of invoices to the Department of Housing having now been paid.
The audit said that more than €15 million in debt in the council’s roads, property development and culture and recreation departments “are not being followed up by DCC’s debt management staff within each department”.
The report said that in some cases “the debt is outstanding for a number of years”. In its response to the audit, the local authority said each of the three departments would identify what debts could and could not be collected.
DCC’s accounts also showed rental arrears of €39.6 million, which included arrears in local authority rents, Rent to Buy, RAS and Traveller accommodation rent.
The audit found that Traveller accommodation rental arrears increased from €1.1 million to €1.4 million between 2023 and 2024.
“It is noted that there is no revenue collector appointed to this category of arrears,” the audit said. “Some of the large arrears were reviewed as part of the audit in this area and it was found that in some accounts no payments were received for a number years [sic] and no case management notes existed for that period of time.”
DCC said: “The collection of rent remains challenging across the estate.”
