Sir, – The Irish Georgian Society welcomes Olivia Kelly’s timely article (“Fears for 100 historic buildings due to cuts”, Home News, May 8th) highlighting the chronic shortage of funding available for Dublin’s threatened historic building stock, particularly in light of the city’s inclusion on the tentative list of Unesco world heritage sites.
The ongoing erosion of Dublin’s built heritage seems contrary to the aspirations of this listing, which should be seen as a means of celebrating the city’s heritage rather than serving as a backdrop to its decline.
With rising vacancies in historic buildings and ever-diminishing public and private funds available, the future seems quite bleak, and Dublin is not alone in this regard, as it is a nationwide problem.
In determining a solution, emphasis needs to be placed on the introduction of emergency maintenance programmes for buildings of particular significance and on a mechanism to provide new uses for vacant buildings so as to provide a measure of passive security.
Additional funding will be necessary for such an initiative but if the effort is not made now it is likely that more protected structures will be lost in the coming years and the repair costs of others will dwarf the relatively small sums required for maintenance and repair today.
For its part in safeguarding Dublin’s historic building stock, the Irish Georgian Society is working with Dublin City Council on the restoration of an important 18th-century building on South William Street and also works on a national basis to promote best practice in the conservation and maintenance of historic buildings. Furthermore, the society is developing a national list of endangered protected structures and welcomes information on these from members and non-members alike. – Yours, etc,