Madam, - I may have the answer to our infrastructure and social deficits: present everyone with a picture of how it could be rather than how it is.
A recent planning decision in Malahide granting a high-rise, high-density mixed residential and commercial development, involving the demolition of existing cottages, opposed by the local Community Forum and others, has a condition stating that: "The applicant shall submit six copies of a photographic record of the existing single-storey cottages along Strand Street and The Green". The reason given is in order to preserve a historical record of Malahide.
So to start off with:
1) We should take a picture of Carrickmines Castle before we concrete over it.
2) How about sending people on waiting lists a picture of a hospital bed so they know what they might get if one becomes available.
3) Maybe even a picture of a school or a shop to everyone living in a residential development miles from any amenity or
4) Perhaps a picture of a train or a bus to people whose only experience of them is infrequent or not at all.
5) A picture of some green countryside will do nicely for us all as poorly planned and indiscriminate development dots the landscape.
It would seem that the preservation of community and our built and natural heritage runs so far behind the relentless demands to accede to development that in the long term it is hard to see who benefits. Maybe we could be sent some pictures of those people too? - Yours, etc.,
JONATHAN LAW,
Marina Village,
Malahide,
Co Dublin.