diff --git a/exist-core/src/main/java/org/exist/util/serializer/XMLWriter.java b/exist-core/src/main/java/org/exist/util/serializer/XMLWriter.java
index 1c97047e4ba..1055d0ec696 100644
--- a/exist-core/src/main/java/org/exist/util/serializer/XMLWriter.java
+++ b/exist-core/src/main/java/org/exist/util/serializer/XMLWriter.java
@@ -352,9 +352,7 @@ public void attribute(final QName qname, final CharSequence value) throws Transf
             }
             writer.write(qname.getLocalPart());
             writer.write("=\"");
-            //TODO (AP) - perf hack - needs to respect specials (e.g. precompute)
-            //writeChars(value, true);
-            writer.append(value);
+            writeChars(value, true);
             writer.write('"');
         } catch(final IOException ioe) {
             throw new TransformerException(ioe.getMessage(), ioe);