Mixed reaction to multi-use games area eight years on

A PROJECT to build a Multi-use Games Area (MUGA) that was campaigned for by young people has finally broken ground after eight years and has attracted a mixed reaction in the community.

Works commenced on site next to Dominic’s Community Centre in Tallaght with the view of installing a MUGA consisting of ball stop fencing, football goals, basketball hoops and artificial grass carpet.

Stretching out to around 34m long and 16m wide, the MUGA is being installed under the first phase of the Teenspace programme being rolled out by South Dublin County Council using capital funding.

However, there appears to be mixed reactions on the ground surrounding the proposed facility, which broke ground on January 25.

“This is going to change my whole life. I have lived here for 50 years now, since ’73 and we only have this patch of grass in front of us,” Patricia Furlong Dique, resident in Homelawns, tells The Echo.

“Now, when I’m looking out my front door, this is all I’ll see.

“This is encroaching on our privacy and on our lives, and its taking up the little green space we have.”

It is understood that councillors and the community alike only found out that construction had started when the builders were already on site.

Residents, such as Ms Furong Dique, have raised concerns about the lack of parking, potential for anti-social behaviour, noise and the management of the facility when it opens following the completion of works in late February.

Dominic’s Community Centre, which will border the MUGA, says they “don’t have a say in it”.

“We don’t have a say in it, this is all parks and public realm looking to build it,” says Paddy O’Neill, community employment officer in Dominic’s Community Centre.

“If everything goes well, we’re happy for the kids in the centre to use the facility but we do have concerns like the rest of the community.

“We have concerns around the policing and cleaning of it, who is going to look after it?

“But we are hopeful it will go well because if it does, it will be of good use for the area.

“We’ll just have to wait and see.”

A group called Amplifying Voices, which was set up in 2014, was a three-year initiative which aimed to engage and empower young people aged 10 to 15 years to find their voice and use it to effect change.

In the St Dominic’s area, a group of young people banded together to campaign for a safe play space, in October 2012.

In the kids’ campaign video, released in January 2014, the young people are videoed standing on the exact spot where the MUGA would come to break ground some eight-years later holding up signs which read “we want somewhere to play”.

In the brainstorming phase, the group visited MUGAs in Fettercairn and Mac Uilliam and “decided that’s what we wanted to get”.

According to The Atlantic Philanthropies, which funded Barnardos’ Amplifying Voices, the campaign led by the young people secured €60k in funding for an all-weather play facility.

According to South Dublin County Council, funding was not available for a MUGA at that time – “although a very successful playspace was installed with considerable input” from the group of young people.

The playspace that the council references is a natural play environment which opened in October 2015 that paid ode to ancient celtic monuments, with natural hills and a sand pit along with swings and slides.

The council says that, due to the nature of the build, it is not required to have a statutory public consultation process, “however local consultations were carried out”.

Funding for the MUGA was approved by councillors under the first phase of the council’s Teenspace programme.

In December 2019, a questionnaire was delivered to addresses in Homelawns and Avonbeg asking if residents were in favour of a MUGA beside the community centre.

The council said: “38 responses were received with 32 in favour and six against the MUGA.”

This is something in which Ms Furlong Dique took issue with, saying that “the council should have long and lengthy communication with residents in a community, not a short and brief consultation in the area”.

In early 2020, following a further consultation with locals living close to the open space, a decision was made to proceed with the MUGA and a meeting was held with teenagers and young people.

Held in Dominic’s Community Centre, 20 to 30 young people attended and “the consensus was that they were all in favour of the MUGA with goals and basketball hoops”, according to the council.

The Echo understands that a room in the community centre was rented by the council to carry out the consultation with young people, and not held in conjunction with the centre.

“There appears to be a mixed reaction to it,” Cllr Charlie O’Connor tells The Echo, after visiting the site multiple times in the first week of construction.

“You have people who are in support of the facility.

“Then you have residents living really close to it, some are elderly, and they are worried how people will react when it opens.

“They’re worried about the noise and potential for anti-social behaviour, all of which are concerns I’ve raised with the council and asked them to consider.”

The Echo contacted South Dublin County Council for comment.