Mr. Colm Mac Geehin:

I am the legal adviser to the relatives of the seven signatories. The members have heard two of those relatives speak already. They come from all walks of life. They hold very different views but the one issue that has brought them together and for which they have got the support of other groups is their alarm and dismay at the way our history is being treated and in the way the area of Moore Street is utterly run down. As Mr. James Connolly Heron referred to already, this is one of two battlefield sites in the whole of Ireland and Britain in the 20th century. The Easter Rising was the first anti-colonial war which inspired other nations. It was the one international event that happened on our soil, and that is what they wish to state.

They have made presentations to the committee already on what they want preserved. Their point could not be restated often enough. They want to save not merely the monument at 14-17 Moore Street but the entire terrace, in addition to the historic laneways the Taoiseach called the laneways of history.

I wish to bring the attention of members to some of the obfuscation that has occurred. It has been stated repeatedly by the supporters of Chartered Land that the monument comprises the buildings at 14-17 Moore Street. It does not because these comprise but 40% of the national monument, which extends back to Moore Lane. It has also been stated the company has full planning permission but it does not. It has planning permission subject to the consent of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government.

Why is the company seeking consent? Its representatives are not present today because, in the company's culture, this matter should be addressed in secret or behind closed doors, as was always the case. Although the representatives are not here, they sent a very revealing letter to the committee last July. I will not read it in full but will summarise it. A startling point made in the last paragraph is that while the company does not have any money itself, it is confident that, for the present, NAMA will give it sufficient funds with which to develop the buildings to the front, as it puts it. I do not know how it intends to renovate them. It refers to only four buildings in the centre of the terrace in the national monument. The letter proceeds to deny that the development would encroach on the monument. As the authors put it, "this is not quite true". This is quite revealing. It is intended to build a three-level car park covering the 60% of the national monument that lies to the rear, in addition to toilets beneath.

The company's main acknowledgement is that it has no money with which to carry out the development and that it does not envisage the monument being developed before 2016. This begs the question as to why it is so insistent on obtaining consent. To use its own parlance, it is because it wants to "flip" the site. Flipping means that, with the benefit of the planning permission, the monument can be sold, which would suit the company and, I presume, NAMA. It would then be in the hands of what we normally call vulture capitalists, who could build a massive shopping centre on the site.

Extraordinarily, the letter states the company does not wish to do away with the laneways. The planning permission documentation states a square is to be put in the middle. This would encroach on the national monument itself. The company wants to crash through the buildings to the front and build new roadways down the middle. It wants to pave over everything in existence and obliterate it from the site entirely. This is the plan that has conditionally been sanctioned. This is what the company wants to flog with the consent of NAMA and, I presume, the Minister. If this is allowed to happen, it will be a national disgrace. There is no place for this development whatsoever. It is entirely without meaning. The only intention is to sell it on to some others with large funds to do what they can with it.