It's a few years since it was seconds out for the thing we called The Time in the Slime. The device was a clever idea, a rectangular contraption floating in the murky waters of the River Liffey, counting down the seconds to the start of a brand new millennium. The year was 1996 and back then it seemed that Dublin Corporation was way ahead of its time.

Shortly afterwards, the slime-infested time machine had to be fished out of the Liffey and after last week's High Court judgment, the corporation's millennium spike has been temporarily scuppered.

Other city-centre millennium projects, such as the pedestrian bridge on O'Connell Street, the boardwalk on the river and the development at Smithfield, are now open to similar challenges. The corporation remains confident that, despite any delays, all projects will go ahead.

Meanwhile, the man who challenged the corporation, artist and inventor Michealain O Nuallain (71), says he is not delighting in the fact that because of him the Monument of Light, to give it its proper, if pompous, title, will not be erected in time for the eve-of-the-millennium celebrations, or that other projects could also be put on the back-burner.

"I take no pleasure in holding up anything other than a pint of Guinness," said Mr O Nuallain, a brother of writer Flann O'Brien.

Mr O Nuallain was one of the more than 200 entrants who were losers in the competition to design a monument to replace Nelson's Pillar on the capital's main thoroughfare, but he says his action had nothing to do with sour grapes.

"In fact, I like the monument but not for O'Connell Street," said the man whose competition entry incorporated a flying saucer set above some Japanese-style toilets.

"It is a thing apart; it sticks up like a sore thumb," he said of the millennium spike.

Explaining his legal challenge, he said he had a problem with the corporation using Part 10 of the Planning Act to erect the monument, which allowed it to grant permission for the scheme to itself in the absence of any appeal.

"The corporation can't just contemplate its own navel and then decide to do what it likes," Mr O Nuallain said.

But it was because the corporation had not carried out an Environmental Impact Study, which it has now been ordered to do by the High Court, that the monument has now been put back by what the corporation estimate is a period of six months.

Conservationists such as Michael Smith, director of environment and heritage group Lancefort, point out that according to European law an EIS is necessary for "any urban development project which is likely to have a significant effect on the environment".

The recent judgment, he claimed, suggested that even when an EIS is carried out, the proposed 400 ft monument will be open to further legal challenge.

THE chairwoman of the judging panel for the competition, architect Joan O'Connor, suggested that the monument could have been much higher and still have related to the scale of O'Connell Street.

"It is the first time an EIS has been required for something as ephemeral as a slim and beautiful object," she said. "It is a great loss . . . items of great beauty will always be a point of controversy."

The beauty of the object was not the point, according to Mr Smith. "The scheme," he said, "breached national and European law and the terms of the competition which required it to relate to the scale of the buildings on O'Connell Street.

"Its planning application attracted over 95 per cent negative comment from the general public."

It was clear, he added, that those involved "don't understand when an EIS is required", perhaps because national practice doesn't reflect European law.

"An EIS is all about impact, not whether it is good or bad. Railroading the scheme in the absence of a clear assessment of its impact and in the teeth of so many objections was both arrogant and illegal."

The other millennium projects that have been granted permission are still open to judicial review but Dublin City Manager Mr John Fitzgerald said he was "very confident" that these would go ahead.

"There are no plans to do anything where decisions have already been made," said Mr Fitzgerald, adding that he accepted the High Court decision. "Where new projects are planned we will have to take account of the judgment in this case".

On the question of whether the delay of the millennium spike is embarrassing for the corporation he says that what he is most embarrassed about is the condition of O'Connell Street.

"I have been embarrassed since I took up office and I will continue to be embarrassed for the next three-and-a-half years until the regeneration is complete, at which point I will cease to be embarrassed," he said.

In the overall context of the improvement of the O'Connell Street area, the delay to the monument was "not the end of the world".