Sir, - I welcome the fact that the Department of the Environment has announced it is taking reinforced action to protect old buildings and their interiors (March 22nd). Minister Howlin wants to ensure that past mistakes are not repeated, but when property speculators bought up Georgian terraces and allowed the buildings to fall into disrepair so they could be demolished.
These words might fairly be applied to the controversial decision to demolish a row of Georgian houses on Essex Quay in 1993, though there has yet to be any public admission of error in the matter. The Minister for the Environment is, of course, the one and only shareholder of Temple Bar Properties, and it is to be hoped that he will intervene to curtail any further demolitions or guttings in the area, and indeed to have the Sunlight Chambers and other surviving old buildings carefully cleaned and repainted, without entirely removing the patina of age.
Further to earlier correspondence I find I was mistaken in relation to the visibility of Isolde's Tower. On closer inspection, I see the Tower standing proudly among Temple Bar's cultural and imbibing centres, and atop it is Isolde herself, dressed all in black, with a mission statement in one hand and a demolition order in the other. - Yours, etc.,
Windgates,
Bray, Co Wicklow.