GERMANY’S AMBASSADOR to Ireland has gone to the Gardaà over complaints that he can’t sleep at night – because RTÉ staff are working late doing work on the set of Fair City.
Busso von Alvensleben says that his official receptions at his residence in Danesfield, outside Donnybrook, are regularly disrupted by set designers hammering away at the Carrigstown set, located to the village side of RTÉ’s Donnybrook headquarters.
Staff say they had to ask a building crew to stop work at 1:30am one night in April, but had to call local Gardai when the work was still ongoing at 2:15am.
The ambassador is now one of a number of people who have lodged objections to RTÉ’s planning application to retain the exterior set, for which it recently emerged it only had a 10-year permission which had lapsed in 2005.
An embassy spokesman told the Sunday Times that the embassy had made a formal complaint to Dublin City Council and that RTÉ was given a verbal warning after the late-night works.
On one occasion the staff were even disturbed by small explosions on the set – though RTÉ did, on that occasion, give its neighbours warnings of its plans.
The embassy says it has no objection to “RTÉ having a film set within their extensive grounds but they do object to it being up against the wall of their staff residence.”
