Sea walls and Dart views

Sir, – In his column (“Ireland needs to invest now to stem economic cost of floods”, Business, February 23rd), John FitzGerald states that “Building defences to protect this vital artery will make the views from the Dart less interesting”.

On the contrary, the last time this work was undertaken, in 1980-84, when the railway from Merrion to Salthill was raised a half metre, passengers were enabled to view an additional half metre of scenery above Dargan’s sea wall.

Flooding of the railway, which was frequent in the 1960s and 1970s, became unknown until recent weeks. It now seems we may have to repeat this exercise every 40 or 50 years. – Yours, etc,

THOMAS A BURKE,

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Stillorgan,

Co Dublin.