Plans for a five-star boutique hotel and restaurant in Dublin city centre have run into objections from local residents and businesses.Former Jones Engineering boss, Jim Curley’s firm, Dairy Hill Property Ltd, has lodged plans for the 37-bedroom hotel in the former Ulster Bank building at the junction of Lower Baggot Street and Pembroke Street Lower, and adjoining properties at 33, 34, 35, 36 and 37 Pembroke Street Lower.The plans include a 93-seater restaurant and bar to be located in the banking hall on the ground floor of the former bank branch at 130 Lower Baggot Street and a “speakeasy” bar in the basement where the bank’s vaults were located.The Pembroke Road Association and the managing agents for the owners of Matt The Thresher restaurant are objecting to the plans.Susan McCarrick, on behalf of the Pembroke Road Association, has told Dublin City Council that the area is at saturation point for licensed premises.“There is plenty of street life around this particular junction as people like to eat and drink outside whenever possible. The area is at saturation point,” McCarrick said. “We must also look at tourism trends, and, in particular, what is happening in other European cities, where over-tourism is a major issue.“We feel that the demands of a hotel combined with a large scale food and drink offering at this constrained site in terms of traffic, services and drainage is unacceptable,” she added. She said the “development does not protect the inherent character of the area and its physical and aesthetic strengths…We would respectfully ask that you refuse this application”.Objecting on behalf of the managing agents for the owners of the Matt the Thresher restaurant which is located next door, architect James Delahunty has told the council that, while his clients ore not opposed to development, the “consider that a use of this level of intensity is not appropriate at this location, and that its overall scale and bulk appear highly overbearing on the streetscape, acutely impacting on their premises in particular”.Delahunty wrote that the visual impact of the development, both on the existing former bank building itself, and on Pembroke Street Lower and Baggot Street is strikingly negative. A resident from Harold’s Cross, Philip O’Reilly told the council the proposal “would totally overwhelm this historic core of the city”.