Minister responsible for OPW spending has “audacity” to blame cyclists for cost of €335k Leinster House bike stand

— Minister responsible for spending on bicycle stand said that TDs and staff should just put a “plastic bag over their saddle” and use a normal bike stand.

A Government Minister who had the  responsibility for OPW spending when the €335k Leinster House bike stand when it was planned, designed, tendered for and constructed has been accused of having the “audacity” to blame cyclists for the cost of a project under his remit.

The OPW installed the bike rack, shelter, granite paving and associated works such as bollards and repaving a small section of the car park around the bike parking after it was requested by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. The Commission — not the Government — is responsible for the grounds around the series of parliamentary buildings which make up Leinster House.

As this website reported this week, the Office of Public Works defended the high costs of providing 32 bicycle parking spaces with a shelter on the grounds of Leinster House — a structure which resembles a long bus stop shelter with bicycle racks under it.

Cllr Seán Hartigan, a Limerick-based Green Party councillor, said: “The Minister who was responsible for OPW when the €335k bike shelter was ordered blames cyclists for having the audacity to want covered bike parking.”

Patrick O”Donovan — a Fine Gael TD for Limerick and current Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science — was Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, with responsibility for the Office of Public Works between July 1st 2020 and April 9th 2024.

Minister O’Donovan told reporters yesterday that: “…and those TDs and staff that want to cycle to the Dail, the same way they might like to cycle to other parts of Dublin, you know there’s nothing wrong with putting a plastic bag over their saddle and tying it onto a stand which can be bought off the shelf.”

In a video posted by Newstalk, he’s recorded as having said: “First of all, Ministers don’t sign off on expenditure in the OPW no more than they do in other Government Departments. It’s a matter for the accounting officer and an accounting officer at the relevant level in the organisation would have looked at that.”

He outlined how his successor, Minister of State responsible for the Office of Public Works, Kieran O’Donnell, has ordered a report on the matter.

O’Donovan said to reporter’s that the amount of money was “excessive” for the number of bicycles and that the first he heard of it was when he read it in a newspaper.

Before that O’Donovan served as the Minister cover the OPW, he also served across the departments of Public Expenditure and Finance in a junior minister roll with responsibility for public procurement,.

His stint as Minister response for the OPW — seen as the only junior ministry with its own capital budget — included the time when the cycle stand was planned, designed, tender for and up to when construction was nearly finished after months of work.

The OPW confirmed this timeline in a previously issued statement which outlined that in May 2021 the Commission of the Houses of the Oireachtas requested the OPW to “provide a visible, covered bicycle shelter for the Houses of the Oireachtas on Leinster Lawn”.

The OPW also confirmed that the planning application was lodged during October 2022 and in November 2022; that the contractor was appointed during December 2023, and that works commenced in early January 2024 “with excavation works and continued through to March 2024 with construction of the steel and glass structure and putting in place the granite paving. Final works were completed by mid-April 2024.”

Newstalk clip: