Sir, - Richard Herriott's proposal for a national car park (letters, July 26th) must get the serious consideration it deserves. As a-modern country with a burgeoning tourist industry, we should look to the cultural niches of the future, including the international parking market.
If we don't source the European, Funding available for this project before 1999, we may lose the car park to Portugal, where begrudgery is almost unknown and car parking is at a premium. We must take our heads out of the sand and get parking.
Since the National Convention Centre is to go Ballsbridge on Dublin's Southside, it is only fair that the national car-park should go to O'Connell Street, on the more deprived Northside. I might also suggest that a cross-city carparking trail be developed, to capitalise on our existing car- parking infrastructure, both surface and multi-storey.
Thanks to enlightened new policies and the prescient provision of tax incentives, Dublin is now developing a full range of extraordinarily beautiful multi-storeys which are among the most parkable in Europe. The trail would link Temple Bar to the national car park in O'Connell Street, thereby opening the door to international marketing of the joint stag night/car park weekend, a possibility whose benefits we can no longer afford to ignore.
In 1985, An Taisce suggested that Temple Bar be developed as a Left Bank area. We now endorse a 218 storey, suspended, revolving national car park on the site of the old Nelson Column. Only thirty years after it was blown up, we recognise that redeveloping this site will appear premature to some but we feel that risks are worth taking for a fitting symbol of the new Dublin to take us into the 21st century.
Public tastes for the likes of James Joyce, Nelson and Michael Davitt come and go, but the coalition Government should recognise that the whole world likes a car park. Like the 50 metre pool, the resources will be made available if the public shouts loud enough. As with the rod licence dispute, this should be an election issue. Yours, etc., Chairman, An Taisce Dublin City Planning Committee, Tailors Hall, Dublin 8.