Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The zoo has not sprawled all over the park but has expanded into lands beside Áras an Uachtaráin. The magazine fort, which I walked around on one occasion when it was carelessly left open, is decaying completely in front of our eyes but it could be a military museum or something like that. Allowing it to degrade any further would be a big mistake.As somebody who loves the Phoenix Park, all of its memorials and big houses and the castle in it, I believe we should be very slow to turn it into something it is not, namely, a kind of Disneyland amusement park. I do not think it needs a funicular railway or novelties of any significance. While the OPW should be thanked for thinking of different ways to view its future, it should be warned off the more exotic plans it has on this occasion and asked to take a conservative view of the park.