COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, July 11, 2022

QUESTION NO. 1

QUESTION: Councillor Carly Bailey

To ask the Chief Executive for a report on how many electrical boxes/controller case that were commissioned for use under the Dublin Canvas 'Paint a Box' project have been painted over in error this year. Report to confirm if the artists and Dublin Canvas were contacted in relation to this and apologised to?

REPLY: 

Since 2018 South Dublin County Council has used traffic light boxes to exhibit high quality, creative artwork to the public. Traffic light control boxes make perfect canvases to showcase community art as they are always naturally located in high footfall – high traffic areas. The artwork can be enjoyed by pedestrians, cyclist, and motorists as they wait for the traffic light to turn green.

Unfortunately, in recent months,  a small number of traffic light boxes which had artwork were painted over in error. In these cases, there was graffiti on the adjacent box which was to be covered. The Environmental Awareness Office, who currently manages the Dublin Canvas programme has made contact with the contractors and agreed a protocol to prevent this from happening again.  Measures such as issuing screenshots of the exact location, a clear instruction that no murals are to be painted over and highlighting the correct box to be painted will be implemented. We expect this to resolve the problem going forward.

The Environmental Awareness Office has written to Dublin Canvas, who delivers the programme in the County, to apologise. We have also requested that Dublin Canvas pass on our apologies to the artists, whose artwork got painted over in error this year.