NIALL O'NEILL,
Sir, - I am a long-time resident of Dundrum, a place which has now been designated the second town of the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown county - perhaps a dubious honour.
The village is being bypassed. Our library is an historic old Carnegie building dating back about 100 years. It is now proposed that the building be sold by the county council to the Department of Justice to become the new Garda station. It is a historic building which many people enjoy using and it seems unthinkable that it should be used for anything other than the purpose for which it was built.
It is proposed to move the library to some anonymous, characterless part of the new Dundrum Town Centre - a monstrosity being foisted on the people of Dundrum for the benefit of big business to draw huge crowds and more traffic congestion from outside the area.
I broached the matter with a public representative whose response was that the library building was too small and that it would be better all round to move the library service. Another justification put forward was that the library would be on the wrong side of the Dundrum bypass and therefore difficult to reach. All minor obstacles really, if the powers-that-be wanted to retain a bit of local heritage. This seems to me to be a done deal.
The health clinic at the rear of the library is being moved also. Therefore it would be possible to build an architecturally tasteful extension to the library. I feel sure that most of the library users would like to see the service continue in its time-honoured location. - Yours, etc.,
NIALL O'NEILL,
Sandyford Road,
Dundrum,
Dublin 16.