Fitzwilliam Square, the last privately owned city-centre park in the capital, may open its gates to the public soon if Dublin Corporation has its way.
The local authority is making representations to the association which holds a 999-year lease on the Georgian park to have it opened for public use.
Cllr Dermot Lacey (Labour), whose questioning of its status prompted the move, said: "I would like to hear the case for keeping it closed.
"It is the last of the closed squares in the prime inner-city area between the canals. We are not trying to deprive anyone of anything but it is somewhere where people need a bit of greenery and a place to sit down."
The leaseholders, the Fitzwilliam Square Association Ltd, a non-profit-making preservation society whose members comprise local businesses and residents, has yet to discuss the matter.
However, committee member Mr Oran Ryan, a solicitor in a Fitzwilliam Square firm, warned it had voted on the matter some years ago and "it was heavily defeated primarily for one reason, security".
Even as a private park, he said, it attracted problems with burglars using it as a vantage point to break into surrounding buildings. For many years the area has been associated with prostitution.
The corporation has contacted the association and plans to write to inquire about a possible purchase of the lease.
Mr Ryan said "any new proposal from the corporation would have to go to a referendum".
The association, which has several hundred members, has monthly committee meetings. Membership is open to people on the square and adjoining streets, although only the former can vote.
Among the square's residents are Sir Anthony O'Reilly and Senator Edward Haughey.
Containing grass tennis courts and a Victorian pavilion, the park is maintained by a part-time gardener.
The park has always been in private ownership, passing from the Fitzwilliam estate to the Earl of Pembroke's family in 1816. When the lease ran out in the 1960s, the Pembroke Estate, which still holds the freehold, granted a further lease to the association.