Nearly everybody has anecdotal evidence that Dublin has suffered through the years for the lack of a large convention centre. It is a given that international convention business has grown extravagantly through the last three decades, bringing business to cities which can properly accommodate it. Dublin can accommodate only very modest conventions and even then it loses much business because the price is too high. That is because most of Dublin's conference facilities are stand-alone premises which must charge a price that covers all costs. In other cities, the convention facility is part of a large development; it is quite common in the United States for lavish convention facilities to be thrown in free - once booking in the associated hotel passes a certain threshold.
Dublin's long-running need (three competitions spread over a ten-year period) for a large convention centre within a larger development which could contribute to its running costs, seemed to have been met a year ago when a subsidiary of the Spencer Dock Development Company was awarded the contract to build a centre. It would accommodate up to 3,000 people, qualify for £26 million in EU funds, cost the taxpayer nothing and have its construction and running costs subsidised by the ancillary developments (mainly offices and apartments) built alongside. Quod erat demonstrandum . . . .almost.
Dublin Corporation's decision to give planning permission - for the moment - for only the conference centre and one other building and to reduce the overall ancillary development by one quarter, now threatens the whole project - the largest urban development ever planned in Ireland. The developers have warned that the corporation's decision was "casting some doubt on the future of the total project". And time is of the essence. If the conference centre is not finished by the end of next year, the £26 million on offer from Brussels won't come through.
But the developers can hardly have been greatly surprised at the corporation's decision. The design for the conference centre itself has much to recommend it, though it is doubtful that it would ever be Dublin's answer to the Sydney Opera House as was originally suggested. The corporation's problem is with the enormous scale and density of the proposed ancillary developments, not to mention the height. The corporation is right to be concerned. The developers will appeal to An Bord Pleanala and therein they might win some relaxation of the corporation's reduction. But perhaps not. Badly and all as the State needs a national conference centre, the attitude to development has altered somewhat on the back of the economy's buoyancy.
Development per se is taken for granted; the emphasis now is on architectural merit, scale and context. And that is as it should be. The developers should give consideration to scaling down their proposal to take account of the corporation's careful and lengthy decision. They must bear in mind that the site rests alongside residential areas and that Liffey quayside development must stand up to the highest aesthetic scrutiny. Moreover, the conference centre is to be a flagship development; it must not be squeezed in alongside offices and apartments the scale of which marginalises it. A conference centre at any price cannot be contemplated.