Grimy Dublin in the 1980s

Sir, – In his willingness to “take where we are today, anytime, over the situation 37 years ago” Brian Ahern (Letters, April 17th) contrasts the “scrubland, grimy warehouses and an outsize gasometer” depicted in a YouTube video of Dublin’s docklands from the millennium year of 1988 with today’s vista where “a vibrant metropolis would spread out before your eyes”.

Well, let’s look at Dublin in 2025. Una Mullally’s article (“Why are most new housing schemes in Dublin city so terrible?” Opinion & Analysis, April 14th) is depressingly reflective of the current Dublin; office blocks going up as opposed to more urgently needed apartments, housing schemes that are structurally defective and a health hazard for residents among her chief criticisms.

I would add a few indictments of my own; a city whose main street is unsafe the darker it gets, buildings on O’Connell Street that have been derelict for 30 years at least (the Carlton Cinema, an egregious example), and all across the centre of Dublin, and elsewhere, an acute housing crisis.

I’m afraid I’m not buying the “improved” view of Dublin Mr Ahern is trying to sell through the narrow prism of the revitalised Dublin Docklands, an area that only a select few can afford to live in. – Yours, etc.