Sir, – In welcoming the decision of An Coimisiún Pleanála to uphold the appeal to build an extension at the Rotunda Hospital on the grounds that it would damage the architectural heritage of Parnell Square, a previous letter-writer states: “It is the Georgian squares that most strongly define our capital city.” (Letters, February 19th).
As a proud Dub, I would say it’s not the buildings that best define Dublin, rather it’s the people – including the smallest and most vulnerable who will grow up to be its citizens.
And as for heritage, I’m sure long-standing local resident Charles Stewart Parnell (in whose honour the square is named and whose finger points to the Rotunda) would not object to the words inscribed on his monument being updated and invoked: “No man or woman has the right to say to this hospital, Thus far shalt thou go and no further.”
In addition to the very significant clinical benefits, building this extension is the patriotic thing to do. – Yours, etc,
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CHRIS FITZPATRICK,
Terenure Road,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Prof Tom Matthews’s criticism of An Coimisiún Pleanála’s refusal of planning permission for a big extension to the Rotunda Hospital (“Blocking of Rotunda development to preserve a dilapidated streetscape defies belief”, February 18th) conflates two very different issues: the pressing need to improve maternity and neonatal care, and the statutory responsibility of the planning system to protect a historic urban environment.
No reasonable person disputes that conditions within the Rotunda are far from ideal, or that mothers and babies deserve better facilities. However, the board’s decision was taken on planning grounds alone. Its task was not to adjudicate on healthcare policy or capital investment priorities, but to assess whether the scale, massing and siting of the proposed development were compatible with Parnell Square, a Georgian ensemble of national architectural importance. It concluded that they were not.
That conclusion may be uncomfortable, but it is neither irrational nor anti-healthcare. Planning decisions routinely involve balancing competing public interests, and heritage protection is not an optional extra in that process. It exists precisely because historic streetscapes, once compromised, cannot be recovered. To suggest that such considerations should simply yield because a project is desirable risks emptying conservation policy of any real meaning.
Matthews is also wrong to describe Parnell Square as “dilapidated”. While imperfect, like much of Dublin’s historic core, it remains one of the city’s most significant civic spaces, with a coherence and scale that planning policy has long sought to preserve. To dismiss it as an unattractive obstacle betrays a narrow understanding of what planning expertise entails.
Where r Matthews is right to be angry is in identifying the chronic failure of the State to deliver a long-promised relocation and co-location of the Rotunda with a Level 4 acute hospital. That project has been discussed for more than two decades, yet successive governments have failed to bring it to fruition.
The consequence of that inaction is that the Rotunda is now attempting to solve a systemic healthcare problem through incremental development on an already constrained historic site.
It is not reasonable to expect that the cumulative effects of political delay and under-delivery should be offset by sacrificing a protected streetscape. Nor is it fair to characterise the refusal of permission as an attack on maternity care, when it is in fact a symptom of a much deeper failure of strategic planning at national level.
If we are serious about improving maternity services, the answer lies not in undermining the planning system when it proves inconvenient, but in finally delivering the modern, properly resourced facilities that have been promised, and deferred, for far too long. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL O’MEARA,
Fenor,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – Considering the recent decision by An Coimisiún Pleanála to reject the proposed development at the Rotunda Hospital, it’s worth noting that, less than a kilometre from the Rotunda, a strong precedent has already been set for the harming of the architectural character of Georgian Dublin.
Stand at the bottom of Henrietta Street to admire one of the capital’s grandest streetscapes, only to have your eyes offended by what may charitably be described as a large, formulaic and soulless apartment block of relatively recent vintage.
This monstrous carbuncle, to quote a phrase, does nothing for the view of Henrietta Street apart from detract from it. And yet it was built. So why not build on Parnell Square? As I say, the precedent is there. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN AHERN,
Clonsilla,
Dublin 15.
