OPW history book to go €350,000 over budget

A HISTORY of the Office of Public Works to be published this year will cost the taxpayer €350,000 more than was originally envisaged.

The OPW agreed a two-year contract in 2002 with a professional historian to write a history of the organisation at a total cost of €76,184.

However, when the full extent of archival work needed became apparent, the OPW agreed a further extension until January 2006 at a further cost of €78,470.

No signed contract went beyond this point. However the project has been continually extended by the OPW and will be finally completed this year.

The final cost is now expected to be in the region of €420,000.

Records released under the Freedom of Information Act show that three smaller publications will be issued rather than a single comprehensive history of the organisation.

The OPW says it plans to publish the “references and search aids material” on its website shortly.

In addition, it plans to publish a history of St Stephen’s Green this year, along with a book on OPW history. This book will be a reference guide to the history of the organisation, rather than a full scholarly history.

Documents show that an editorial team is being appointed, with representatives from the National Archive, to assist and oversee the process.

Briefing material for the OPW states that more extensive research on the scale of the project should have been done before commissioning the official history.

However, it maintains that archival work undertaken by the historian would have taken up to five years at a cost of about €225,000.

It says this documentation has proved highly valuable in other projects.

The contract for the original book envisaged a history of the organisation stretching back to its foundation as the office of the surveyor-general in 1690.

While the OPW used to be responsible for major pieces of public infrastructure, these days it is responsible for the care and maintenance and presentation of national monuments, buildings and parks such as the Phoenix Park and the National Botanic Gardens.

Officials say that the extent of the archival work was significant and involved reviewing or indexing about 150,000 files, 4,000 ledgers and 70,000 plans and sketches, and 400,000 images.

The references and search aids will be published on the OPW’s website and historians or those with an interest in local history will be able to find references online. People may then go to the National Archives to view the material.

The history of St Stephen's Green, a 90,000-word book, is due to be published early this year.