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Dublin Letter: Planning AnarchyAuthor(s): Dennis KennedySource: Fortnight, No. 73 (Nov. 30, 1973), p. 8Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25544797 .

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8 FRIDAY 30th NOVEMBER 1973

Dublin Letter

Planning Anarchy

Dennis Kennedy Talk of North-South co-operation, of a

Council of Ireland, and particularly of a

common-law enforcement area may per suade Northerners to look more closely at the Republic and see what sort of

society it is with which they are going to

be ever more closely associated.

In opinions on the South, there are, to

coin a phrase, extremists on both sides. There are those who are carried away by the new professionalism of people in

business, in semi-state bodies and even

in some areas of Government and public service. There are others who see only

helicopters flying in and out of Mount

joy, incidents likely to give rise to acri

monious debate on the exact Irish trans

lation of helicopter, and little else.

But there is a streak of anarchy in

Southern society, a common attitude towards the law and authority which will seem strange and infuriating to most

Northerners. This is not the lawlessness of the gunman, or the helicopter esca

pees, but a combination of a disregard for the rules by some, and a resigned acceptance by the others that the rules will not be enforced. (The lower decks of Dublin buses all bear "na caitear tabac"

notices, but no is ever asked not to

smoke.) Take the Central Bank, for instance,

currently the most prominent defier of

authority in Dublin. The Bank, the custodian of the Irish curency, is build

ing a 150-foot office block in the centre of Dublin in defiance of the planning authority, Dublin Corporation, and de

spite an order from the Corporation to

stop work.

Six years ago the Bank applied for

planning permission for the site, and received approval for a 200-foot high building. An Taisce (the National Trust) appealed against this, and the then

Minister reduced the planned building to a maximum of 120 feet. On this basis

work began last year, and throughout this summer the twin-towers of the un usual structure have been rising above Dame Street, and overshadowing the

office of the Planning Department of Dublin Corporation.

The building, which sounds like a

mushroom, is built outward and down ward from the top of the two towers. This month, it was revealed, the top of it would be 150 feet above street level, not

120. When the Corporation heard this it ordered work to stop, but work went on, and a new application for planning approval for the retention of the modi fied building?modified upward?went in. Last week the Corporation rejected this, leaving it to the Bank to knock the

thing down, or appeal to the Minister for Local Government.

An appeal is certain, but appeals take time, and what happens meanwhile? does work stop, or does the building go on? If it goes on, will it ever be demo lished or reduced in size? Most people assume that the building will stay, and

SIDELINES ,...e*fwu.

After the houhah in the South over the latest moves in the contraception saga, I

couldn't help wondering again how it is

that they manage to keep their birth rate so low without them. Is is the late

marriage, or abstinence or rhythm or

what? I found the answer at last in a

lecture by Father Marx (no kidding) to

the Irish Family League last week. Dur

ing his talk Father Marx suggested an

extended school and college study pro

gramme on human sexuality. After his

lecture he was asked to expand on this.

"Sexuality imbues every human activ

ity", he replied. "Everything we do is in a

sense sexual. When I'm teaching pre

marriage classes in the USA 1 often walk

up to the prettiest girl in the room and

say 'We're having sex right now; you're female, I'm male; this is a sexual rela

tionship!" With sex education like that

who needs contraceptives. Or celibacy for that matter.

the skyline of Dublin go. The whole area of planning control in

the Republic is in a state of anarchy. Hotels, factories and estate and private houses go up regularly without benefit of

planning permission, and often in defi ance of a refusal of permission. Many estate builders make a practice of in

cluding on a given site several extra

houses in addition to those for which

they have approval. Currently one devel

opment near Dublin has 26 more houses on the site than were approved?and the

Department of Local Government is

paying grants on the extra "illegal" 26. The Dublin and Wicklow mountains,

in addition to many more remote coastal

areas, bear substantial ^and far more

eloquent witness to the lack of, or defi ance of, planning control. Dublin itself has preserved only a tiny fraction of its

physical elegance and architecturally has much less to offer than most

medium-sized European cities over

which two major wars have passed. This inability, to date, of society to

withstand commercial or sectional pres sures where the general amenities of the

environment are concerned is reflected too in lesser but obvious blemishes like

the riot of advertising hoardings and un

restricted commercialisation along main

roads?the approach to Dublin from the

North is a prime example. Hope that the new Government was

going to move on this front began with the startling intervention of the Admini

stration to suspend work on the site of Dublin's new civic offices, between Christ Church Cathedral and the Liffey. When plans were accepted for this site

several years ago, there was a muted

outcry against the failure to preserve an

open-space between the Cathedral and

the river, for purely visual reasons.

When work started on the site, how

ever, its major archaeological impor tance was realised?by Norwegians if no

one else. Being in the area of the earliest

settlement on the Liffey it contains valu

able Viking remains, in addition to parts of the old city wall. All, it seemed, would

be buried under the new civic offices.

Now the Government has said the offices

should go elsewhere.

Irish civilisation had just recovered from the shock of this when the Minister

for Local Government told local authori

ties that they were being too tough on

planning applications in rural areas. A more liberal approach was needed.

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