Madam, - Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe is interested in value for money (Education Today, September 16th). This is laudable.
However, if the best he can do is to blame architects for being overpaid, he is very badly advised. In fact, design team fees account for less than 2 per cent of the lifetime cost of a building.
At a time when Enterprise Ireland is encouraging architects to take advantage of our high international reputation by seeking more work abroad, and in a week where Ireland is splendidly represented at the Venice Architectural Biennale, it is disappointing that a Minister for Education should suggest that quantity surveyors should take over the design of buildings. Good architecture is not a luxury, but a necessity that repays itself many times over through successive generations.
Let us not yet again confuse "value for money" with" "cheap". We had enough of that in the 1960s.
I suggest that the Minister acquaint himself with Government policy on architecture and that he takes a good look around him to remind himself of its value. - Yours, etc,
HUGH MURRAY,
Murray O'Laoire Architects,
Lock Quay,
Limerick.