Sir, - Until this summer I believed that the argument against siting unnecessary and potentially catastrophic facilities for visitors near Mullaghmore in the Burren had been won; and that vision had combined with common sense to prevent further ruination of this unique environment.
But no. Untouched by the incontrovertible depositions of local, national and international experts, the desecrators plod back to life like monsters in a horror movie. They just won't lie down. The woeful support which the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands gives to this pigheadedness reminds me of the old anarchist slogan: "Government is chaos".
I am a poet whose work is currently represented on the Leaving Certificate syllabus. Many of my poems celebrate the landscape of the West of Ireland. There very subject-matter is threatened by the absence of intelligent environmental policies.
I plead with Ms de Valera to listen to those who profoundly understand the problems, and to think again. Does she really want her monument to be a public lavatory in the Garden of Eden? - Yours, etc.,
Michael Longley, Osborne Gardens, Belfast 9.