The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, has been urged to intervene with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) to secure an interactive science museum for the Custom House Docks site.
The science committee of the Royal Dublin Society is backing a call from Discovery, a group pursuing this €7 million project, following the DDDA's decision to abandon plans for a museum on the site.
Stack A, an early 19th century warehouse, had been earmarked for a "major cultural attraction" since 1987. There was also provision for a levy on office space in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) to fund it.
This levy, charged at 50p (63 cent) per square foot, would raise an estimated €1 million per annum to subsidise the running of a museum in Stack A. However, since no museum has materialised, it has not been operable.
Earlier this year, the DDDA sought proposals to locate a museum in the front portion of the warehouse, having already allocated the rest of the space - more than half of it - for a shopping mall.
The DDDA said all of the proposals, which included the Discovery project and a museum of Dublin's history, were "felt to be insufficient in their power to attract visitors...or were otherwise a poor fit to the overall project".
"No museum proposal was found to be secure financially even with the benefit of the available subvention," according to its chief executive, Mr Peter Coyne.
He said, however, the subvention "remains valid should a museum proposal emerge in the IFSC at a later date". With none being selected, the authority decided to implement a scheme for Stack A as an "exhibition and event venue", even though this would not qualify for the cultural levy.
Given Stack A's location in the Custom House Docks close to bus and train services, Dr Brendan Finucane, chairman of the RDS science and technology committee, said it would be "a dreadful lost opportunity" if the building was not secured for a science centre.
The Discovery group has written to the Tánaiste, whose Department of Enterprise and Employment includes the Office of Science and Technology, urging Ms Harney to intervene in the dispute "in the interests of the public good".
Ms Rose Kevany, co-founder of Discovery, said turning Stack A into an exhibition and event centre would be a contravention both of the letter and spirit of the 1988 master project agreement for the development of the Custom House Docks site.
Referring to Mr Coyne's suggestion that a museum could be located elsewhere, she noted a purpose-built science centre was likely to cost €20 to €40 million, compared to €7 million in start-up costs for the Stack A proposal.
She also warned that the levy "cannot be moved from Stack A, so the centre would require continuing government funding". Yet the museum element of this "national asset" was now "at risk of being stolen away with very little public consultation".
Ms Kevany urged the Tánaiste to question the DDDA's decision to withdraw the portion of Stack A assigned for museum purposes, especially as its predecessor - the Custom House Docks Development Authority - favoured such a project.She recalled that Ms Harney had been responsible for including in the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat Programme for Government a commitment to support the establishment of interactive science centres to enhance public awareness of science.
"Yet the best chance for making that centre become a reality is under very real threat."