Dublin City councillors make last appeal to keep Mansion House crib

A last effort to save the traditional live-animal crib outside Dublin’s Mansion House will be made at a meeting of Dublin City Council on Monday night.

Lord Mayor Caroline Conroy last month announced the crib, which has been erected at Christmas outside the Manion House on Dawson Street since 1995, would be stood down this year.

Ms Conroy, a Green Party councillor, said she intended to introduce a more “inclusive” winter wonderland-style experience, with choirs, sleighs and post boxes at the Mansion House in place of the nativity with live animals.

Her decision has drawn criticism from politicians from a number of parties, as well as the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) and the Dublin Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

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Former president Mary McAleese has also written to the lord mayor asking her to reconsider the decision, which she said had “caused lot of sadness”. Ms McAleese said she had heard Ms Conroy on RTÉ radio explaining her reasons for “dropping” the crib and the alternatives proposed. “I was not persuaded by the reasons you advanced for dropping the live crib and even less captivated by the winter wonderland you described.”

[ Mary McAleese calls on Dublin Mayor to reverse decision on removing live animal Christmas crib from city centre ]

[ Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral among sites hoping to host Mansion House live crib ]

Fine Gael has tabled an emergency motion for Monday urging Ms Conroy to reverse her decision. The party acknowledged that as the current occupant of the Mansion House it was Ms Conroy’s prerogative to “cancel the 30-year tradition” of hosting the crib, but it appealed to her to reconsider.

“I think this reflects the broadly held view by all elected members that cancelling the live crib was a huge mistake and that’s why we have tabled our motion for Monday’s meeting in the hope that some form of compromise can be found,” Fine Gael councillor James Geoghegan said.

It is also at the lord mayor’s discretion whether she allows the emergency motion to be put to the councillors.

“In our opinion, to the breath of public reaction, to the decision to cancel the live-animal crib for reasons that have not been fully elaborated upon, do meet the `seriousness’ threshold and it is clearly unexpected given the 30-year tradition of hosting the live-animal crib,” Mr Geoghegan said. “This motion cannot be dealt with in any other way because of time constraint between this meeting and when the live animal crib is ordinarily installed.”

Ms Conroy did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.