Future home of Dublin's favourite 'floozie' to be decided today

And so farewell then to Dublin's best-known piece of sculpture, the Anna Livia fountain - better known as "The Floozie in the Jacuzzi".

Removed from O'Connell Street two weeks ago, the final-resting place of the Floozie will be decided today by the City Architect, Mr Jim Barrett, and her creator, Mr Eamon O'Doherty.

It is expected she will be moved to the Croppies' Memorial Park on the Liffey's North quay. The bronze statue will henceforth be presented in a jacuzzi-free environment, or what Dublin Corporation calls "a still-water setting". She awaits her fate entombed in a crate in St Anne's Park, Raheny.

Her life might have been nasty, brutish and short but no-one could accuse the Floozie of being a shrinking violet. Designed to commemorate Dublin's millennium year in 1988, she provoked equal amounts of outrage and enthusiasm even before she "opened for business" in June that year.

One leading sculptor called the plans "an atrocious eyesore" and the poet Paula Meehan described the sculpture as "some class of a horizontal erection".

In the early days, weary shoppers rested by her waters and children jumped in on hot days, but the arrival of drug-dealers put paid to that. Soon the mythical Liffey waters were filled with litter, soap-flakes and used syringes. The "Floozie in the Jacuzzi" had become "the mess in the middle".

The waters were turned off and the days of the Floozie were numbered when plans were made for the "millennium monument".

Mr O'Doherty told RT╔ yesterday he designed the sculpture to provide seating for 200 people because there were "very few places to sit down in Dublin". However, he had no control over the "character or background of the people who put their bums on my seats".

Now the spot occupied by the Floozie is to be used as a works compound for what the corporation is calling "The New Spire of Dublin" aka The Spike.

Dr Michael Smurfit, whose company contributed £200,000 to the cost of the Anna Livia fountain, declined to comment on her demise. "It's a pity she didn't work out where she was. We hope she'll be happier where she's going," a sympathetic corporation spokeswoman said yesterday.