The headline in the Mayo News last month was nothing if not direct: "Commercialism rules the day as Ballina UDC de-lists heritage buildings." But the arguments advanced by councillors to justify their action, as reported in detail by James Laffey, showed that little had been learned since the 1960s.
The six councillors present decided unanimously to withdraw legal protection from one of the oldest buildings in the town - Ballina's first hotel, in fact - as well as from two other buildings, one of them a very impressive Victorian bank premises that had been recommended for listing by Duchas, the Heritage Service.
"If we list this building, we will imprison this man," said Cllr Johnny O'Malley (FF). He was referring to the one-time hotel, a five-bay Georgian building on Pearse Street, in the heart of the north Mayo town, and to its current owner, Eddie Melvin, who runs an insurance business from the premises and wants to pull it down.
Earlier this year, Melvin sought planning permission to demolish the building, which dates from 1770, and replace it with an apartment block incorporating retail units at street level. The application was withdrawn after An Taisce and the Irish Georgian Society had objected, citing the proposal to list it as a protected structure.
Melvin subsequently lobbied the councillors, clearly with considerable success. At the UDC meeting, Cllr Frances McAndrew (FF) said an engineer had found that it was structurally unsound. In her view, the building had no merit, and Melvin should be allowed to get on with his plans to develop it for the benefit of the town.
Her party colleague, Cllr O'Malley, strongly agreed. "We cannot marry what he wants for the building and what Duchas wants. There is a need for business in this town and we cannot stifle development," he declared. The other four councillors present went along with the proposal to de-list it, thereby making its demolition more likely.
As for the former bank, a major architectural feature of Pearse Street, they decided that since it had become a private house it would be an invasion of privacy to list it; according to Cllr O'Malley, owners of old buildings feared they would not be able to cut the grass if their properties were registered as protected structures.
The third building to be de-listed is a substantial Edwardian house on one of the main roads into the town. In both cases, the owners had given assurances that they would not carry out major alterations - though, as town clerk Paul Benson pointed out, these would be set aside if the buildings were sold and the new owners had other plans.
Noelle Angley, an architect with Mayo County Council who was called in by the UDC to advise on the Duchas listings, reminded councillors that Ballina had lost some of its finest buildings because they were not protected by legislation. If the town's first hotel was demolished, it would be a huge loss to Ballina and the entire region, she warned.
Her plea for its protection as fundamentally important to the town's heritage fell on deaf ears. Now she is hoping to preserve it by convincing the owner that it would be capable of adaptation with its original features retained. It may also be possible to persuade the councillors to revisit their decision not to list the building.
What they had been presented with, after all, was a proposal to give legislative protection to just 40 buildings - a small fraction of Ballina's total stock of at least 2,500 - including St Muiredach's Cathedral, the courthouse, two bridges over the River Moy and the 1798 Memorial, none of which could be said to have development potential.
Under the 1999 Planning Act, it is a reserved function of the elected members of local authorities to decide on what will, or will not, be included in a register of protected structures. This exercise of local political discretion was introduced by former Environment Minister Brendan Howlin as an alternative to centralised decision-making.
Some local authority officials have told Duchas that the designation of protected structures would work much better if the politicians, with all the pressures they are subject to, had no role in the process. But the notion behind involving them was that looking after a town's heritage is a local responsibility, not something that can be bureaucratically imposed.
Clientelism inevitably intervenes. This was dramatically illustrated in Galway, where Senator Muldoon (FG) managed to have 100 buildings removed from the draft list in the city plan - in response to constituents worried about the implications of their properties acquiring statutory protection.
For decades, listed buildings had virtually no protection. Now, as a result of last year's legislation, the owners of protected structures are obliged to ensure that they are preserved. Apart from stiff fines and/or jail terms for allowing such a structure to become endangered, they are prohibited from carrying out any alterations without prior approval.
And though owners are eligible for grants covering up to 50 per cent of the cost of approved works, the annual amount allocated for the restoration of protected structures is currently less than £4 million - a trifling sum compared to the scale of need nationally and the unimaginable resources now available to the Exchequer.
Noelle Angley believes it would be easier to secure the future of historic buildings if the fears of owners about the punitive aspects of the 1999 Planning Act could be dispelled. Duchas needs to produce a simpler, less daunting guide highlighting its positive aspects and the willingness of local authorities to be flexible on alterations.
One hopeful sign for Ballina is that some UDC members, notably Cllr Jodie Beattie (Ind), complained about a number of glaring omissions in the list of protected structures, including the old dipensary on Lord Edward Street, which is all that survives of the town's workhouse; this can be put right when the list is revised in the future.
Meanwhile, Gerry Browner, senior Duchas architect dealing with the national inventory of historic buildings, is awaiting the verdicts from eight other towns, including Kilkenny, Clonmel and Letterkenny, on its recommendations for the designation of some 700 protected structures. It's all in the hands of local councillors.