The Irish Times

There's a lot more to plans for the site of Dún Laoghaire's derelict baths than simplistic slogans about privatising the seafront. If you were to believe the Save Our Seafront group, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council is involved in "an underhand and shameful attempt to privatise the public seafront" at Scotsman's Bay, by putting "a huge, exclusive, privately-owned barrier between the coast road and the sea". The group, which is led by Socialist Workers Party activist Richard Boyd Barrett, claims this would "destroy a part of the seafront as a natural amenity". It opposes "any development that would obscure the sea view or damage the coastal vista" and wants the old sea baths developed as a public amenity. There is strong opposition locally to the council's plan to replace the baths with an indoor swimming and leisure complex, infilling five acres of the seafront for a "maritime park", and to pay for this by developing 180 apartments with shops and cafés at ground-floor level on the site of the baths.