Sir, - We have the makings of an unseemly row between two Department of the Environment sponsored bodies - Temple Bar Properties and Temple Bar Renewal - as to which of them should bear the brunt of responsibility for the evolution of Dublin's cultural quarter into a drinking mall (letter from Laura Magahy of October 8th, replying to my letter about Dublin pubs).
As I had written, Temple Bar Properties has built, let or facilitated through site disposals, at least eight new or newly expanded licensed premises.
Temple Bar Renewal awarded these and other pubs the privilege of the enormous Temple Bar tax incentives.
The row is roughly analogous to builders of poor housing blaming the statutory regime which permits it. The difference is that whereas wringing of hands might be excusable from the private sector, TBP, as a State sponsored government body, should demonstrate exemplary standards despite the shortcomings of the statutory regime that has made inappropriate development not alone possible, but also hugely tax efficient in Temple Bar. - Yours, etc.,
An Taisce,
Dublin City Association, Tailors Hall,
Dublin 8.
PS: Mr Tom Bresnan (letters, October 12th) will be pleased to know that it is not too late to save the former Barney Kieran's pub, the setting for the Cyclops scene in Joyce's Ulysses. It has not "vanished". Though no longer a pub, it still stands on Little Britain Street. The problem for An Taisce and those who care about Dublin's architectural heritage and literary culture is, as I pointed out, that its owner now proposes to demolish it.