Madam, - Apart from the havoc the unplanned decentralisation programme will have on the country's public service and the lives of individual public servants it will also have ruinous consequences for the physical planning of the country.
The term "subtopia" was first coined many years ago in the British Architectural Review. It has particular relevance now in this country because the decentralisation programme will result in both urban and rural subtopia if implemented. It will diminish the urban character of not alone Dublin but Cork and Limerick as well and it will also further erode the character of the countryside.
The problem of urban sprawl needs to be addressed but the crude ploy of taking a huge segment of the capital's population and sprinkling parts of that segment around the country in a haphazard fashion is not the way to go about it. - Yours, etc.,
TOMAS O'BEIRNE, Ilex House, Sussex Road, Dublin 4.