Sir, - Ms Joan O'Connor claims (The Irish Times, July 10th), in relation to the O'Connell Street spike, that it was the first time an EIS has been required for anything as "ephemeral as a slim and beautiful object".
As chairwoman of the architectural competition panel for the spike, she might usefully have been aware that the last thing beauty (which aspires to transcendence) aims at is ephemerality (which means transience). - Yours, etc., Andrew Smith,
Kinnegad, Co Westmeath.