COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF TALLAGHT AREA COMMITTEE (1)

Monday, October 17, 2011

MOTION NO. 17

MOTION: Councillor C. King

That this Committee calls on the Manager  to initiate an investigation into the process by which Children's and infants graves were desecrated during the installation of a footpath adjacent the Angels Plot at Bohernabreena Cemetery where no consultation or notice was given to Parents and Families of the deceased children. This Committee further calls on the Manager to provide a written apology to all those Families who have been treated with complete disrespect due to the actions of this Council.

REPORT:

The work in question arose out of the necessity to extend and provide additional grave spaces in the Angels Plot in Bohernabreena graveyard.  At present there are only three spaces remaining in this section.  In order to extend the section it is necessary to lay an additional section of footpath to make the graves on either side easily accessible.  Laying of additional headstone foundations will also be required.  When the maintenance crew arrived on site to carry out this work they became aware that personal items placed on some graves would need to be moved in order for them to construct the footpath edge in the correct location.  They proceeded to move the items concerned back on each grave.  I am informed that this was done carefully and respectfully by the staff concerned.  On the morning in question a group of people gathered in the graveyard expressing their anger at the action taken by the Council staff.  The foreman in charge decided that work could not continue in such circumstances and so he instructed his crew to leave the graveyard.  The situation remains the same to this date, work has not yet resumed.

Discussions have taken place in the meantime with some of the fmilies affected and with the national chariperson of A Little Lifetime Foundation, who has made representations on behalf of the families.  The families have two main issues, firstly that the Council did not notify them of the work to be done and the need for it and secondly that the Council staff moved items on their graves.  The Council accepts that as the work was likely to have a direct impact on these graves that the grave owners should have been notified.  It is also accepts that Council staff should not have moved the personal items back on the graves in question, but that the families should have been asked to do this.  The Council intends to issue a letter in the coming days to these families which will explain the work to be done and the necessity for it.  The letter will also contain the apology which has been requested by the families.  Finally, the Council would like to refute the suggestion that it desecrated these graves.  This is not the case, as already stated the moving of personal items on graves was done by Council staff in a careful and respectful manner and was not intended to cause upset to the families concerned.