Sir, - How dare the project team of Spenser Dock International boast (June 23rd) that the National Convention Centre will be Dublin's answer to the Sydney Opera House. It will contain, apart from the conference and exhibition space for 3,000 people, two hotels, 140,000 square feet of retail space, 1.3 million square feet of office space, car parking for over 1,500 cars and one million square feet of apartments and houses, but no theatre or opera house.
Everything planned exists elsewhere in Dublin already, except for so large a conference centre, but Dublin is still the only European capital without an opera house. This is not only a total disgrace in a city which never stops claiming cultural supremacy, but means that the top opera and ballet companies of the world are never seen in Dublin. Occasionally guest stars or a small nucleus from such companies give excerpts from their famous repertoires, or concert or cut-down "touring" versions, but never can Dublin see and hear the international repertoire available virtually everywhere else. And let noone suggest that the Point Depot is an acceptable substitute. It may be splendid for rock concerts and exhibitions, but anyone who considers it suitable for opera or ballet must have very little real interest in either.
So let us have a moratorium on talk of cultural capitals. The Celtic Tiger clearly has no interest in art, only money, money, money - and even that is only for the golden circle of the already-rich. - Yours, etc., Carolyn Swift,
Upper Leeson Street,
Dublin 4.