Study calls for £30.5m Liffey-side centre for science

Ireland should build a £30.5 million national science centre in Dublin, creating an attraction that would rival the Book of Kells and Dublin Zoo as a major tourist amenity, according to a study to be published this morning.

The former gasworks site on the River Liffey is the report's preferred option for a national science centre. It recommends a location on the river as close as possible to the city centre, probably adjacent to Misery Hill.

The study, commissioned by the Royal Dublin Society and funded by Forfas, recommends the centre should be built on the old gasworks site on the River Liffey and could be opened to mark the new millennium in 2001.

While substantial State funding would be needed to get the project off the ground, a significant proportion of costs could be covered by private sector contributions, according to the report's author, Dr Joost Douma, founder and former chief executive of the National Dutch Science Centre, new Metropolis.

It would be an opportunity to give the city an "architectural masterpiece," Dr Douma said yesterday. "It needs a kind of an icon. It would represent an icon for the 21st century and a new level of confidence in Ireland."

He believed such an ambitious project would be feasible given the experience of science centres established abroad. There was usually a "threefold" approach to funding, he said, with a third each coming from state government, the local authority and the private sector.

He said that a site on the river as close as possible to the city centre would be the most desirable location, and would also provide exhibition space outside along the river front.

His decision to support this location will disappoint competing proposals for a national science centre, particularly the Pigeon House Heritage Project, based in the old Pigeon House power station further down the river, and DISCovery, which would involve space in the IFSC complex across the Liffey.

The centre would be expected to attract at least 300,000 visitors a year, Dr Douma predicts in his analysis, including up to 60,000 students. Initially it would be expected to operate on an annual deficit of about £900,000, but this could easily be reduced to £700,000 on the basis of private sector support and higher visitor numbers. By comparison, the Book of Kells attracts just over 402,000 visitors each year and the zoo more than 387,500.

Funding for the site purchase and buildings, he suggests, could be raised through a combined effort by the EU, the National Lottery, Dublin Corporation and two Government Departments: Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Education and Science. The Government has never made any commitment to support such a centre, however.

Dr Doumas proposes the centre and Ireland be promoted as "the brain park of Europe" and that this metaphor be used as part of the centre's corporate image. It would be a valuable educational resource operating "as a kind of supermarket, a shopping mall for spontaneous learning".

He suggests the centre should have an area of about 11,000 square metres. It would present the visitor with five science themes: the universe, matter, the living planet, man as a species, and man as an interactor.