Rewild Leinster House car park and I’ll give up my free spot, says Shane Ross
FORMER minister Shane Ross has said he’d be happy to forfeit his free parking at Leinster House to have the car park turned into an eco-friendly wild lawn.
Former TDs and senators are currently entitled to free parking for life in the car park.
However, environment advocates, historians and cycling campaigners have urged Oireachtas committees to restore the garden at the Kildare Street entrance of Leinster House, which is now a car park.
Yesterday, author and environmentalist Rob Cross, who colourises old photos, shared one such snap of Leinster House’s courtyard from the 1890s, accompanied with a scathing message.
He tweeted the colourised photo alongside one of a car-filled courtyard from 2020 and wrote: ‘Ireland’s heritage death by a thousand cuts! #Dublin #Ireland #GlobalWarming #ClimateAction.’
A letter – signed by a number of groups including the Dublin Cycling Campaign, Friends Of The Earth, Irish Doctors for the Environment and the Irish Georgian Society – was sent to the Oireachtas Health Committee and Environment Committee calling for the old lawned courtyard with shrubbery to be restored.
In it, the advocates said ‘it is not enough for you to pass Bills to encourage these changes’.
‘We need you, as our representatives, to also embody them. We need you to lead by example,’ the letter added.
Former transport minister Mr Ross told the Irish Daily Mail that while he does avail of the free parking on the Leinster House grounds from time to time, he would be happy to give up the perk if the decision was made to replace the car park with an ecofriendly garden.
‘If they want to find a really useful environmental cause for it, then of course,’ he said. ‘I use it occasionally when I go to town, like all ex-members probably do.
‘I’d be very happy for it to be used for environmental purposes like a wild lawn if that’s what they wanted to do. If there’s a better purpose for it to be used for, I’d be happy to let it go.’
Mr Ross’s comments come after Taoiseach Micheál Martin defended the parking rights held by former TDs and senators.
When questioned by reporters on Wednesday about the calls to reinstate the garden at Leinster House and removing the parking privileges enjoyed by former members of the Oireachtas, the Fianna Fáil leader said the perk recognised the work done by former deputies and senators.
‘The degree to which former members use the facilities isn’t as significant as we might think in any one year,’ he said. ‘I think we also have to acknowledge the role former parliamentarians played in society and in life.’
He added: ‘That said, I do think we have to, at all levels, work to restore biodiversity and to encourage public transport, cycleways and walkways.’
Mr Martin said that he had penned a letter to the Ceann Comhairle a number of years ago to have the lawn on the Merrion Street side of the Leinster House grounds sown with wild flowers. ‘That has worked nicely, so we will take it step by step,’ he said. Hannah Daly, lecturer in energy systems modelling at University College Cork, has also voiced her support for turning the Leinster House car park into a green area. The academic tweeted: ‘The Taoiseach has defended allocating some of the most valuable public space in the capital to parking for life for former parliamentarians. Why not plant a green there instead and give them all a free lifetime public transport ticket, or an ebike?’
‘I’d be happy to let it go’
which would have revealed that as early as June 2015, the married father-of-two was reported by a male motorist for driving around his home county naked from the waist down.
Couzens, then a special constable for Kent Police, was not identified as the driver, even though he was the registered owner of the vehicle. The failure by Kent Police is now the subject of an inquiry by the Independent Office for Police Conduct watchdog.
The error also left Couzens free to secure trusted roles as an armed officer protecting MPs, VIPs and embassies. Failing to link the McDonald’s incident to him meant detectives missed the warning signs as he planned the murder, booking a hire car he could use to kidnap Ms Everard on the same day.
Couzens later collected the vehicle and went on the prowl for a victim to enact his twisted fantasies which were spawned from an obsession with sex and ultra-violent pornography.
He revealed he used prostitutes and he may have abused steroids.
Tom Winsor, chief inspector of constabulary, has now been asked to review Scotland Yard’s vetting practices. He yesterday said he was aware of Couzens’s nickname as ‘The Rapist’, adding: ‘Yes, I do know that. And [he] also had allegedly a reputation in terms of drug abuse, extreme pornography and other offences.’