Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan and agree with his vision, which is part of the vision I expressed to the Bank of Ireland. I presented a slideshow for them showing how the area could become a plaza like Trafalgar Square or Times Square in New York or the many examples in Paris, Madrid and Tiananmen Square. That could be our focal point and it is not overly ambitious to consider it. Dublin City Council has similar plans. The issue of traffic can be overcome.

This was part of our bid for the UNESCO city of literature designation. Our bid referred to considering providing a writers museum. This is nothing new and I am not the first to come up with that vision for the Bank of Ireland. In order to capitalise fully on the designation, we need a centre of literary excellence. We have a very good writers centre and writers museum but these are not of the magnitude to celebrate the achievements of our four winners of the Nobel Prize in literature, Heaney, Beckett, Yeats and Shaw, and the totality of expression running from Swift to our present-day writers making a major impact on the world stage. Members should try to agree to advance as much as possible. It is a site of approximately 1.5 acres under cover in the entire Bank of Ireland College Green complex. A small part of it would suffice to express the unique literary tradition of Ireland. I acknowledge the support of Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan and agree with his vision for that part of the city, which should be shared among all of us in the House.

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