A Dublin-based planning consultant, Fergal MacCabe, is so incensed by the "flippant" portrayal of the proposed Millennium spire for O'Connell Street on Heineken billboards around the city that he lodged a formal complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority. He said the beer company's advertisement purports to be a photo-montage of the 120-metre stainless steel spire, "suggesting in its wording that a sense of humour will be required to tolerate it". Its general thrust was "to ridicule the proposal and to suggest that it would be gross and inappropriate".

In his letter to the ASA, Mr MacCabe noted that the competition-winning spire by London architect Ian Ritchie would be a slender conical mast which tapers from three metres diameter at the base to a pinnacle 120 metres high. Heineken's "dramatically distorted" image suggested that it would be of much greater girth and height. Given that the billboards appeared during the public consultation period for Dublin Corporation's £33 million millennium project - which, incidentally, ends tomorrow - he expressed concern that the billboard image could influence public attitudes and even the City Council's decision on whether to go ahead with it.

Mr MacCabe cited a letter in The Irish Times from one reader who was convinced by the Heineken advertisement that the spire would be a "monstrous eyesore".