Sir, - I refer to Frank McDonald's piece "Casino Developers say poor will be excluded" (May 14th).
The "modest proposal" apparently is that £50 million of public money (including EU money) is to be spent on a development to be built exactly equidistant between Finglas and Blanchardstown and with a large part of the indigenous population to be excluded from the casino although welcome, of course, to attend football matches in the stadium and rock concerts in the events arena to be built on the same campus, and with the "exclusion" orders to be enforced by discerning bouncers. I wonder what the European Commission would make of this.
The reference to the Conrad Hotel is quite ludicrous. The Conrad certainly is posh but it does not have an 80,000 square foot casino in its basement, nor is it part of a complex involving a 65,000 seater stadium and a 10,000 seater arena so as to bring the punters in from far and near. Who are they codding? - Yours, etc.,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.