When the 7% of Dublin city centre that is zoned Z8 is added to the area of all other listed buildings and conservation areas, it encompasses 25% of the land in the city.

It is a paradox that preserving buildings because of the technological advances and civic progress they once celebrated now threatens to stifle the very city that created them.

Whole city quarters are dying slowly because the same economic imperatives that created them have now made them redundant. Old buildings become uninhabitable because they are not adaptable to modern uses and are too expensive and inefficient to run.