COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF TALLAGHT AREA COMMITTEE (1)

Monday, December 05, 2011

MOTION NO. 6

MOTION: Councillor C. King

That this Committee calls on the Manager to report on what organisation sanctioned the piece of  'motorway art' which was recently installed in the vicinity of the Kingswood interchange of the Outer Ring Road and the N7, how much it cost and what organisation paid for it.

REPORT:

The Marker Tree was commissioned by South Dublin County Council under the national "Per Cent for Art" Scheme on behalf of the NRA and the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government. All central government departments are required to include a percentage of public construction projects up to a value of €64,000 for the commissioning of public art.

 Local authorities may pool the funds from more than one project to realise a more substantial piece of work. In this case the funds arose from the Outer Ring Road and construction projects in the areas that it serves, and the N7 road widening scheme. The money is ring fenced by the Council as a capital budget and can only be spent on the commissioning of Public Art as directed by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht  PUBLIC ART: PER CENT FOR ART SCHEME GENERAL NATIONAL GUIDELINES – 2004.

 It is against this national background that In Context South Dublin County Council’s Per Cent for Art programme has developed.  Since its establishment in 1997 the programme has had three extremely successful phases of commissioning public art.

South Dublin County Council developed a new public art strategy in 2005 in line with the National Guidelines following local public consultation. The strategy proposed the commissioning of one sculptural piece of art and five artist residencies. The proposals were submitted to The Department of Environment, the NRA and other members of the governments interdepartmental committee on Public Art and the Public Art Advisor of the Arts Council.  The programme was presented to and adopted by the Art, Culture, Education, an Ghaeilge and Libraries Strategic Policy Committee and it was publicly launched in September 2006 following the appointment of the artists who were selected following an open competition process.

The selection of this piece of sculpture was made by a panel made up of a representative of the NRA, an Elected Member of the Council, along with other arts and engineering representatives. The commission to the artist was promoted at €97,000 of which €9000 was paid to the artist and the remainder covered the cost of fabrication. The total cost of the sculpture was €132,000

The Marker Tree is now part of the County's public art collection along with the Victors in Tallaght Village, Love All in Templeogue, Ann Devlin in Rathfarnham,  Sugar and Spice in Lucan and Blip in Clondalkin amongst others.