Madam, - I thought it would be hard to beat the self-serving justification of Fergal McCabe's objections to the opening of Fitzwilliam Square Park (The Irish Times, December 4th) and his championing of the continued restricted use of the park by a self-perpetuating élite.
As the person who proposed the original motion that Dublin City Council acquire the park for public use, I find the suggestion from Mr McCabe, a former president of the Irish Planning Institute, that the Parks Department of Dublin City Council is incapable of maintaining such inner city parks particularly derisory.
Such derision was, however, pushed into second place by a letter in the same paper from the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dick Roche. If he truly is a Minister for all these, it will represent a seismic shift in that Department of State - though it is no wonder the failed apparatus operating from the Custom House has been getting so much wrong, for so long, if among the experts they adhere to is the former president of the Irish Planning Institute.
For the record, this councillor is not for turning and will continue to seek to include the objective of overturning the anachronistic retention of Fitzwilliam Square Park by a small élite and turn it, for wider public use, to Dublin City Council where it rightly belongs.
Perhaps the Minster for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government might lend us a hand. - Yours, etc.,
Cllr DERMOT LACEY,
Beech Hill Drive,
Dublin 4.