Sir - Please allow me to comment on your recent report that South Dublin County Council's decision to grant permission for apartments on the site of Yeat's final home is being appealed.
As you say, the house, Riversdale, was given full protected status. This was the result of a recommendation made by the Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Culture and the Islands "so that the special character of the house can be safeguarded for the future". But protection was not extended to one square yard of the grounds around the house.
Furthermore, in granting permission the planning authority included as one of the conditions the formation of a private company whereby the tenants will manage, maintain and control the completed site. The local authority need not, therefore, take it in charge.
Between them the planning authority and the Minister are "safeguarding the house for the future" by hiding it behind a cluster of apartments in a restricted private area.
How pointless it has turned out to be for those who spent nearly a year trying to save Riversdale, and how wasteful that they are paying the fees required for an appeal to An Bord Pleanala.
What can they expect the board to do? If neither local nor central government can or will honour the world-renowned poet beyond preserving his house, as it were, in aspic, what can An Bord Pleanala do but leave the enclosure in the hands of one who will reap the benefit - the developer?
What a pity Years was not a sportsman, so that we could have given his name to the promised National Stadium (to cost £300 million). - Yours, etc.,
Roger Garland, Butterfield Drive, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.