Sir, - Lest there be any confusion, can I clear up one point regarding the funding of the Temple Bar project? The report on the An Taisce document (July 5th) referred to "an expenditure of £200m, including a large amount of EU funding".
The total investment of public funds committed to the Temple Bar project is £40.6 million. These are provided though a combination of European Regional Development Funds and National Exchequer Funds. This money has been spent in two ways. Firstly, £3.6 million under the EU Urban Pilot Project was allocated to the development of the Irish Film Centre infrastructural improvements and pedestrian routes, marketing and research and planning for the urban renewal of the area. Secondly, spending on the entire Cultural Development Programme 1991-1999 will cost £37 million.
In addition, to finance the commercial programme of retail and residential developments Temple Bar Properties has borrowed £60 million from the European Investment Bank and the Bank of Ireland. These loans are repaid as the retail units are let and the apartments are sold. Also, within the development period, it is anticipated that the private sector will invest approximately £100 million in the development of the area.
For the State investment of £40.6 million, the quality of the return from Temple Bar compared to other initiatives is significant. Unlike other cultural developments, the Cultural Quarter is multi use and contemporary, it creates employment and appeals to a wide diversity of audiences. Examples of comparative recent State investment in cultural infrastructure are the Irish Museum of Modern Art at about £26 million; the Collins Barracks Museum at around £44 million; and most recently, the proposed extension to the National Gallery of Ireland at £12 million.
Like these exciting and worthwhile investments, the Temple Bar Project has provided cultural infrastructures for not just one kind of use, but for a multiplicity of cultural uses, from childrens cultural activities to a diversity of music forms; to film and photography; applied design and multimedia and heritage uses such as the film and photography archives. - Yours, etc.,
Managing director, Temple Bar Properties,
Eustace St,
Dublin 2.