It’s half a century since the idea of a new Garda station in Clonmel was first mooted.
Significant progress was made in recent years with planning permission granted and funding secured for a new building on the Kickham Barracks site in the town.
However the project has ground to a halt in recent times as the Clonmel station was bundled in with a similar building in Macroom and the new Family Law complex in Dublin.
Issues with the Children’s Court are now stalling the plans – Deputy Mattie McGrath has called on the Taoiseach once again for this to be resolved as soon as possible.
“I believe there’s a window at the moment for us to separate – unbundle – that from the Childrens Court. That that’s going to delay it another couple of years.
“If we can get that taken out and have the Public Private Partnership just for Garda stations we may be able to make progress if we can get this bundling segregated again. This station in Clonmel – you’ve seen it – it’s Dickensian I don’t know how anybody works in it. it’s just not fit for purpose.”
In reply to Deputy McGrath Taoiseach Leo Varadkar accepted that the current PPP was not working as planned.
“If we stick with that its going to take forever so we’re now examining unbundling it which would allow us to go ahead with Clonmel and Macroom quite quickly – certainly in the next year or so and we’re just working out the details and legals of doing that.
“It does require bringing forward some spending but actually if you take the long term view it would be cheaper to do it sooner in my view so it’s just the reallocation of funding and we’re working on that at the moment.”
