Madam, - On behalf of An Taisce, I would like to respond to your article (July 7th) reporting the intention of Dublin City Council to delete 500 mainly Victorian buildings from the current list of protected structures.
It appears that in recommending these deletions the advice of Dublin City Council's own conservation office was not sought. This is contrary to Dublin City Council's "standard practice" that buildings should not be removed from the list until a full assessment of each building has been carried out by the conservation office.
An Taisce questions the motivation behind the removal of the buildings and has suggested that only when the buildings have been properly assessed can it be decided what is the most appropriate form of protection. In the meantime we fully support the stance taken by the Irish Georgian Society in opposing the removal of any building from the list.
When our city manager makes the statement that the buildings in question "are not considered to be special" it should be borne in mind that these buildings must have been considered special in order to be included on the list in the first instance.
Given the city council's extremely poor record of architectural preservation in the past, and the appalling disregard shown towards our uniquely valuable Georgian heritage (remember the Georgian mile was the longest intact Georgian streetscape in the world until the ESB was granted permission to demolish 16 houses in the 1960s), An Taisce urges the city manager to exercise extreme care before deciding that large sections of our Victorian heritage are not worth preserving either. - Yours etc.,
V.M. O'SHEA, Honorary Secretary, An Taisce, The Tailors' Hall, Dublin 8.