Madam, - I support the call by CT Ó Dughgaill (April 26th) for a new capital city. In 1990 I warned that Dublin's growth would place impossible pressure on its infrastructure and swallow some of Ireland's best farmland. My proposal was to build a Canberra-style city, called Saibhreas ("prosperity" - an unfamiliar notion then), around Sixmilebridge in Co Clare, exploiting Shannon Airport, and piggy-backing on Limerick as it grew.
My five minutes of fame convinced me that the media were not good at handling new ideas. (see The Irish Times, October 1st, 1990, page 4, report by John Walshe, for the only sensible account of my proposal.)
Most interviewers told me it was crazy, to which I replied that allowing Dublin to stretch from the Blackwater to the Border was crazier still. But the BBC's report was the silliest, objecting that it would be impossible to squeeze "No Sixmilebridge Rule" on to the tiny gable ends of East Belfast.
Two decades later, Dublin is gridlocked, the West still cries out for investment, we have a half-hearted decentralisation policy and Ireland could have had an urban showpiece - complete with handsome embassies paid for by foreign taxpayers! - Yours, etc,
Prof GED MARTIN, Shanacoole, Co Waterford.