Temple Bar residents' object to increase in pub space

THE annual general meeting of Temple Bar Residents' Association was told last night of the "enormous increase in licensed space" in the area. The association's chairwoman, Ms Kate O'Carroll, said "a football pitch of extra (pub) space" was being added.

She said that planning permission granted to the Quays pub, to extend along the length of Temple Bar Square, was being opposed by the group. An appeal will be lodged today.

The meeting, which took place at the Halfpenny Bridge public house, was delayed an hour, until 9 p.m., while a party beginning an organised pub crawl was entertained to Irish music in the upper room where the a.g.m. was to take place.

Also attending the meeting were the PD spokesman on finance, Mr Michael McDowell, and Green Party councillors, Mr Ciaran Cuffe and Mr John Gormley.

Ms O'Carroll said an agreement with publicans in the area concerning the prevention of drinking on the streets no longer existed, and the publicans were unwilling to enter another such agreement.

She said that at a meeting recently with Insp Tom Murphy, of Pearse Street Garda station, it was put "very directly" that they were not happy with policing in the area, and that gardai were "often unhelpful" in their attitude to residents.

Insp Murphy discussed setting up a neighbourhood watch scheme in the area, and said that if the residents should find it necessary to complain to him again then he was not doing his job.

Calling on the Minister for the Environment to commission an independent report on the Temple Bar project, and to establish where mistakes have been made, Mr John Stephenson said Temple Bar Properties' response to recent criticism was "deeply offensive".

It illustrated a "statist, authoritarian paranoia", he said. He felt a report would be a manifestation of "democratic, ground up power" against an "increasingly intolerant state organisation".

Mr Michael Egan felt such a report would be good if it slowed down the "smug, confidence of the juggernaut" that was Temple Bar Properties.

Supporting the report proposal, Mr Frank McDonald described the recently published Temple Bar development programme review as "glossy propagandising babble", with its "fertile synergy, shared sense of ownership, that kind of stuff, while admitting of no error or criticism".

Seconding Mr Stephenson's proposal, Ms Lorraine Benson complained that the residents had been failed by Temple Bar Properties, Dublin Corporation, and planning. She attacked "all this goobledegook about vibrant culture" which she felt was in fact only "viciously vibrant". She said the residents were "on our own" and that they had to "stand up".

Mr Daragh Gallagher believed Temple Bar Properties, which had started out as "a community council", was now "behaving like the worst capitalist". The proposal was agreed.

Mr Egan was concerned about the low turnout at the meeting, between 25 and 30 people were present. The association's treasurer, Mr Richard Coffey, assured him it was not an indication of the feeling of residents generally, and that the committee was in regular contact with "a much larger number".

Replying to a suggestion that a newsletter should be produced by the group, Ms O'Carroll said they were already "waging war against the huge amount of mail junk coming through people's letter boxes". Another resident commented and they are usually peeing through them."