Ever since the Loop Line was driven through the city centre in 1891, nobody has had a good word to say about it. Indeed, when it was first mooted to connect the Belfast and Rosslare railway lines, numerous bodies protested against its construction - mainly because it would deliver a "slap in the face" to the Custom House.
But the railway companies had draconian powers and there was no way of stopping it. More than a century later, with its steel latticework festooned with advertising billboards, it cuts off James Gandon's masterpiece from the rest of the city centre and also conceals the fact that Dublin is located on a bay.
Five years ago, the Institution of Engineers of Ireland held a design competition to replace the existing Loop Line bridge with a lighter, more transparent structure; it was won by Kavanagh Mansfield, consulting engineers. But even though the estimated cost was quite modest, at £2 million, the idea was never taken up.
The IEI has since reactivated the proposal by writing to the Office of Public Works to suggest that it should become a millennium project.
As the Government is belatedly scouting for ideas on how to best to mark the year 2000, there is no reason why it should not consider this imaginative project to replace a major Dublin eyesore.
In the meantime, Fine Gael has put forward a proposal to create a Loop Line further downriver as part of its plan to tackle the city's traffic crisis.
This would involve making a link between the new DART station at Barrow Street beside the Grand Canal Docks, due to open later this year, with the North Wall rail freight yards.
On this 44-acre site, the party's policy document proposes a central station to serve as "the hub of a well-integrated public transport system", drawing together mainline and suburban services as well as a rail link to Dublin Airport. It would incorporate a bus and car park as well as commercial and leisure-related developments.
Coincidentally, the North Wall site has been put forward by Treasury Holdings Ltd in its bid to build the National Conference Centre. This scheme - designed by Irish-born architect Kevin Roche, one of the most successful corporate architects in the US - would include two hotels as well as apartments, offices and leisure facilities.
It is understood that the basis of CIE's agreement with Treasury Holdings is that the existing rail link would be retained, offering the prospect that delegates arriving for a conference would be able to go direct to the conference centre by rail from Dublin Airport, using a spur from the Sligo line at Cabra Junction.
This is the airport rail link option now being recommended by a working party representing Aer Rianta and CIE. It is seen as much more practical than the alternative of plugging an airport connection into the Dublin-Belfast line, which must cater for DART and Dundalk commuter services as well as the new Enterprise express.
The Fine Gael policy document, Capital Crisis, leaves open the issue of whether its proposed link between Barrow Street and the North Wall should be overground or underground. But it does propose a road bridge across the Liffey to serve the new central station, though such a bridge was dropped from the Docklands master plan.
The Dublin Docklands Development Authority's master plan does not take a particularly strategic view on public transport, apart from proposing a docklands area bus service and a Luas light rail line in the longer term. Otherwise, it says it will go along with whatever the Dublin Transportation Office has in mind.
If a new Loop Line is to be installed between Barrow Street and the North Wall, it is obvious that a land reservation would have to be made for it before major development schemes for Docklands get under way. Failure to do this would mean it would have no prospect of being realised. It is also abundantly clear that a new central station on the North Wall would work only if, as Fine Gael suggested this week, it is "complemented by the development of light rail and bus services" linking it with the central business district - particularly O'Connell Street, Pearse Street and the Merrion Square area. A new Loop Line much further east of the existing one would render Westland Row and Tara Street stations redundant - and possibly even Connolly Station. Since Tara Street is closest to the heart of the city and by far the busiest on the DART commuter line, its loss could be offset only by a fast, reliable Luas link to the new central station.
Obviously, locating a central station in Docklands would bring major benefits to the area, underpinning its redevelopment. It would also reinforce the eastward drift of Dublin's centre of gravity, just as the construction of the Custom House did 200 years ago. But at least it would be on the northside and not in Ballsbridge.
Fine Gael's proposal is timely and deserves to be debated publicly to tease out its implications. The Dublin Transportation Office would be doing the city a service if it commissioned a study to examine a new Loop Line in more detail. Then, perhaps, we might look forward to an uninterrupted view of the Custom House.