Presidential candidates promising innovations at the Aras - most notably Adi Roche who proposes "a musical wonderland for our children" and involving Bono and the Army in seeing what "we can do about the tremendous amount of land around the Aras" - should take note that they may have much less land to play with than their predecessors.
An OPW report proposing to hand over 25 of the 160 Aras acres to the zoo next door was presented to the Government during the summer. Reports indicated that work on the plan, which would entail the Aras losing its city gate - the one adjacent to the polo grounds and the lake inside - would start as soon as Mary Robinson left the office in mid-September.
The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who has always been an enthusiastic supporter of the zoo and sympathetic to its need for more space, was understood to have backed the plan which is now under consideration in his department. Mrs Robinson was approached about the idea during her term, but she refused to commit herself either way, saying it was a matter for the government of the day.
Sources say that were it not for the leak the work would have been completed during the interregnum. If so, it appears the only way the new President could have regained the land was to evict a posse of wild animals on the citizens of Dublin.
