`Spike' plan for Dublin `ruled out'

There will be no "Millennium Spike" as it is currently presented, according to a leading environmental and heritage agency.

Mr Michael Smith, director of Lancefort, also said that last week's High Court judgment against the "spike" meant that other Dublin Corporation projects would also be open to judicial review. These include projects in Smithfield, the Millennium Boardwalk and the Millennium Pedestrian Bridge.

The legality of the Monument of Light, as the "spike" is officially known, was challenged in the High Court by the artist Michael O Nuallain on the grounds that Dublin Corporation had not commissioned an environmental impact study (EIS). The challenge succeeded and the corporation now says the 400-foot metal spike will not be built before 2000.

Mr Ciaran McNamara, Dublin Corporation's project manager for the regeneration of O'Connell Street, says however that he is confident it will eventually be built.

"I am still totally committed to the project," he said. "An EIS will now be commissioned and I believe that once the Minister [for the Environment] has looked at that we will be proved to have been correct in choosing the Monument of Light."

The monument was chosen as the winning entrant in a Dublin Corporation architectural competition.

However, Mr Smith said: "It is not just a matter of smoothing procedural niceties. There is an insuperable problem with the height of the scheme."

He points to last week's judgment which states that the proposed height of the "spike" meant it could not relate to the scale of O'Connell Street.

One option open to Dublin Corporation, according to Mr Smith, would be to significantly reduce the height of the monument, which would mean it would have to be redesigned and probably re-commissioned. Alternatively the corporation could choose to erect one of the competition runners-up.

Mr MacNamara said this was not an option.