Madam, - The singer Ronnie Drew says he's "sick and tired of developers getting handed over things that belong to us" in relation to the proposal to "develop" the former Dun Laoghaire baths (The Irish Times, September 19th). His observations couldn't be more apt.
Our collective heritage and culture is being sold down the river. We can see this in the Dun Laoghaire issue. This isn't a case of a privately owned piece of land being sold on and re developed, as with the current decision to replace the Berkeley Court Hotel with apartments. This is a public amenity, akin to the Phoenix Park, being turned over to big business for private development.
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has promised various public amenities in conjunction with the private development aspect of the site. This is merely a ploy. It promised precisely the same thing on the site of the old Pavilion Theatre, yet the private apartments were built and the public amenities were quietly dropped.
We can see avarice at work again in land attached to Airfield house and estate in Dundrum being sold off to developers despite their being entrusted to a board of trustees since the 1970s, for the enjoyment of the public, at the behest of the Overend sisters who owned it.
So often with decisions like these, the people responsible for their implementation remain faceless, unaccountable entities, a hard core of businessmen, builders and developers reap the rewards and the public are left impotent, bearing witness as yet another amenity is lost.
Dublin's unique character is being rapidly eroded and squandered and it is being transformed into an increasingly anonymous and anodyne city. We've learnt nothing since the 1960s and 1970s, the desecration of part of Fitzwilliam Square and the Wood Quay travesty.
Unless sensible planning decisions, unmotivated by greed and short sightedness finally prevail, this will continue unchecked and concrete sprawl will be our legacy to future generations. - Yours, etc,
DAVID MARLBOROUGH, Kenilworth Park, Dublin 6w.