Dublin's Viking Adventure, which cost £5.5 million in Exchequer and EU funding, may close at the end of next month with the loss of more than 30 jobs. Sources close to the project, the most controversial in Temple Bar, said it might reopen in a "slimmed-down" form in March 1998.
But Mr Frank Magee, manager of Dublin Tourism, which operates the attraction, denied yesterday that any decision had been taken.
"I'm not being evasive, but we honestly haven't made up our minds," he said. "We're in the middle of a review of all our operations, including the Viking Adventure, and that's quite normal at this time of year as we approach the end of the summer season."
Mr Magee also insisted it was not true that the facility, which opened in June 1996, was losing £150,000 a year. But when asked if it was paying its way, he said "commercially sensitive information" could not be disclosed.
He denied that the Viking Adventure and Feast, in the former Church of Saints Michael and John, on Essex Street West, had failed to fulfil its business plan. Others claim, however, that it is attracting about half of the projected 100,000 visitors per year.
Mr Magee conceded that the Viking Adventure had closed temporarily for the first two months of this year, a fallow period for tourism, reopening on March 1st.
An Taisce strongly opposed the decision to redevelop Dublin's earliest Catholic church and its adjoining school buildings to house the Viking Adventure. It said the £5.5 million could have been used to restore other redundant churches, such as St Catherine's in Thomas Street.
