{"id":567335,"date":"2026-07-25T09:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567335\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T09:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:22:14","slug":"further-delays-to-abbey-theatre-redevelopment-while-projected-cost-may-now-be-e500m-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/567335\/","title":{"rendered":"Further delays to Abbey Theatre redevelopment while projected cost may now be \u20ac500m \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Redevelopment of the Abbey Theatre<\/a> is mired in red tape and bureaucratic reviews more than eight years after a government-promised \u20ac80 million overhaul.<\/p>\n

Two governments and three taoisigh on from a 2018 pledge to replace the \u201cdeficient\u201d building with a new theatre <\/a>as a \u201cpriority\u201d, construction is now unlikely to begin until after 2028 at the earliest. Moreover, the projected cost has risen to as much as \u20ac500 million.<\/p>\n

The project has been in a protracted back and forth with the Department of Culture for almost two years and still needs the approval of a review group within the Department of Public Expenditure before its redevelopment can be considered for approval in principle by the Government. <\/p>\n

It was first announced that the theatre <\/a>would benefit from an \u20ac80 million redevelopment plan in 2018 under Project Ireland 2040, the State\u2019s large-scale infrastructure plan. The theatre had been listed as a significant capital project that would draw investment between 2018 and 2027 and the redevelopment would include its extension to Eden Quay. <\/p>\n

The theatre is one of the State\u2019s most important cultural institutions<\/a>. It was founded by William Butler Yeats and Augusta Gregory in 1904; the 1966 structure has been described by the government as a \u201cdeficient\u201d building for audiences and performers. <\/p>\n

In 2023, progress was made when objections to a plan by Dublin City Council to purchase the properties next to the theatre were dropped. In a statement this week, the theatre said it \u201cwelcomes the support of Dublin City Council in acquiring certain properties on Eden Quay in Dublin 1, thus securing the expanded footprint of the theatre in the furtherance of our development plans.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, by 2024, the government had still not moved forward. Former minister for culture Catherine Martin\u2019s department contracted professional services firm PwC to carry out an \u201cexternal assurance process\u201d on the project before the government could consider approval. That report, finalised in August 2024, said the business case for the project was in compliance with Government infrastructure guidance. <\/p>\n

The report was then sent from the Department of Culture to an independent group within the Department of Public Expenditure, which is tasked with scrutinising big capital investment projects. <\/p>\n

In September, the major projects advisory group sent back a list of initial queries. The theatre <\/a>said that since then, it has been \u201cprogressing iteratively\u201d with the Department of Culture to try to address them. <\/p>\n

Late last year, the revised National Development Plan for culture, communications and sport listed redevelopment of the theatre as a priority and said, \u201cplanning for this major project will continue with a view, initially, to getting approval in principle from Government to proceed\u201d. Its proposed construction date was listed as \u201cpost 2028\u201d with an indicative cost of between \u20ac200 million and \u20ac500 million. <\/p>\n

The Department of Culture said it and the theatre were due to meet the major projects advisory group in October 2024, but the meeting was postponed when the expert group sought more detail on plans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Redevelopment of the Abbey Theatre is mired in red tape and bureaucratic reviews more than eight years after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[71185,72,15340,147595,14999,61,60],"class_list":["post-567335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-abbey-theatre","tag-business","tag-catherine-martin","tag-department-of-culture-communications-and-sport","tag-department-of-public-expenditure-and-reform","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}