Extensions
The main building has undergone regular extensions from Victorian times, through to a major extension to create offices for TDs in the 1960s, to most recently the building of Leinster House 2000, a new block of offices built to the north of the original ducal palace.
The main extensions are:
- the Victorian additions to the complex which contain the Dáil Chamber
- a 1930s addition which houses Labour Party TDs and Senators
- the so-called Block 66 a five storey office block which was built circa 1966 and which houses Fine Gael TDs and senators, with two restaurants and two bars at ground floor level and which houses the office suite of the leader of the largest party in the Oireactas (currently Fine Gael) and the party's meeting rooms.
- Leinster House 2000, a new millennium wing erected in 2000 and which houses members of all parties, committee rooms and contains the office suites of the leaders of Labour and Fianna Fáil
- some modern offices across Kildare Street in Kildare House
- the top floors of Agriculture House, the Department of Agriculture building which on those floors house offices for independent TDs and independent senators
- offices on Molesworth Street which are used also by some members of the Oireachtas, most notably the office provided for former taoisigh.
To facilitate the building of Leinster House 2000, and so the temporary closure of the parking spaces at the Kildare Street side of Leinster House which was needed for access to the new wing's site by builders, Leinster Lawn on the Merrion Square side of the building was partially turned into a temporary car park.
Though the Kildare Street side car park was restored for use quickly, a considerable increase in staff numbers and media numbers working in the Leinster House required that the temporary car park on Leinster Lawn remain in use. Plans to replace parking at both sides of Leinster House with an underground car park fell through. Despite this the lawn on the Leinster House side has been reinstated, though not to the same specifications as the original which has led to some anger from conservationists.
Read more about this topic: Leinster House
Famous quotes containing the word extensions:
“If we focus exclusively on teaching our children to read, write, spell, and count in their first years of life, we turn our homes into extensions of school and turn bringing up a child into an exercise in curriculum development. We should be parents first and teachers of academic skills second.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“The psychological umbilical cord is more difficult to cut than the real one. We experience our children as extensions of ourselves, and we feel as though their behavior is an expression of something within us...instead of an expression of something in them. We see in our children our own reflection, and when we don’t like what we see, we feel angry at the reflection.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)