Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the 1916 Quarter Development Bill 2015. I thank my colleague, sitting here beside me, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív, who is the chairman of the Fianna Fáil commemoration committee of the events of 1916, for producing this legislation for debate last night and tonight. I also acknowledge the work of my colleague, Senator Darragh O'Brien, for introducing it in the Seanad. More especially, I thank the Fianna Fáil group in Dublin local authorities who have worked together to bring the legislation forward. They did most of the work because they are most intimately involved. They represent Dublin city and the surrounding areas and they understand better than most the need for regeneration in the area.

Our Bill aims to redevelop the national monument at Moore Street and designate the surrounding areas an historic quarter. The 1916 Quarter Development Bill will establish an urban development company tasked with delivering urban regeneration in the area. Most people will be familiar with the tremendous work carried out in the Temple Bar area. If it can happen on one side of the Liffey, there is no reason the same cannot happen on the north side of the Liffey in the Moore Street and surrounding areas, including the GPO.

I want to thank, in particular, the Save 16 Moore Street committee and acknowledge their work and continual involvement. It is not today, yesterday, last year or the year before that those in the committee got involved. I can testify that they have been involved for at least a decade and should be supported in their work. They had a vision in this regard before people even realised we were coming up to the centenary celebrations.

The Bill is very detailed and I wish to deal with the specifics but I want to first put on the record the area it concerns. Some people are not quite sure when we talk about a quarter what exactly it means. Is it a quarter of the city, a little section or a quarter of a street? Schedule 1 to the Bill describes the 1916 quarter area as: "That part of Dublin 1 including the building known as the General Post Office, O’Connell Street, Dublin 1 and its auxiliary lanes adjacent to that building; the street known as Moore Street and auxiliary lanes adjacent to Moore Street; other buildings and locations and their auxiliary roads and lanes in the city of Dublin which were occupied by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army during Easter week, 1916 as prescribed by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht through statutory instrument."

We are not dealing with Moore Street alone. We are including the GPO, surrounding lanes, back streets and buildings in the area. Lest some people think we are just talking about four specific houses in Moore Street, it is much broader than that. This probably reflects the central difference between our approach and the Government's narrow, haphazard approach. When we were in government, we declared the area a national monument. I know the Government purchased the four houses having been pressurised to do so and we welcome that fact. However, the Government seems to be very narrowly focused and does not seem to see the bigger picture. I encourage it to do so.

Some people on the Government side mentioned here tonight that they agreed with the sentiments behind the Bill but not the principles enshrined in it. I have a direct question for the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan. Does she agree with the principle of powers of compulsory purchase being vested in these companies? This is a very important proposal. If the Government does not agree with powers of compulsory purchase in this legislation, nothing will ever happen. Developers are there to make money. Shopping centres and developments are and have been proposed for the area. Shops do what shops do, which is sell whatever knick knack they feel will turn a buck.

If the Government is happy for that approach to continue, will it please say so? However, if it accepts the principle of having powers of compulsory purchase as provided for in this Bill, the Government should let it go to Committee Stage. On Committee Stage, all the difficulties and issues with the Bill people have mentioned can be teased out in detailed discussion. It can then come back to Report and Final Stages here in the Dáil. If the Government does not agree with the principles in the Bill, I hope it will be honest enough to say what it is proposing in its place because there is a clear and concrete proposal in this Bill.

It is fitting that the last private Members' debate of the Dáil this year, before we enter 2016, should be devoted to the commemoration of 1916 in a meaningful way. It should not be the small effort proposed by the Government. The commemoration is bigger than that. There is probably a parallel between the approach being taken by some people in this regard and what happened in 1916. A small group of people were involved then and people said they did not have widespread support. Some 100 years on, there is a bit of that resonating through this debate and the comments of various people because the Government wants to narrow the focus.

I was very pleased, during the term of the last Oireachtas, from 2007 to 2011, to be Chairman of the environment committee.

We were invited by the Save 16 Moore Street committee to see the site. I met a number of my colleagues at the Spire. We then crossed to the General Post Office and were brought on a guided tour. We walked the streets and back lanes of the area, were shown bullet marks in walls and given the full history and background of what happened at various points along the way. We were shown where the various leaders came and went, where lookout posts were stationed and so forth. It was a tremendously educational day. We were finally brought to Moore Street and those of us who would not have been on that street on a regular basis were genuinely disappointed to see the state of the buildings. We were shocked. I was mortified when I looked at the facades of some of the shops on the street and thought to myself that no self respecting capital city in the world would allow buildings of such historic significance to fall into such disrepair. I am delighted the site was declared a national monument subsequently. I would also like to thank the aforementioned committee which provided us with a video showing how the redeveloped site would look.

It has been suggested that there were up to 3,000 participants in the Easter Rising but I do not know the exact number. There has been much favourable coverage and treatment of the events of 1916. I was particularly impressed by the work of Joe Duffy which made the events very human and brought them home to ordinary people. Importantly, it showed the levels of poverty that existed at the time. Joe Duffy, in his book and his work on RTE concentrated specifically on the children who died, some of whom were shot accidentally or caught in the crossfire. It was a very human story and revealed the real horror of what happened in Easter week in 1916.

We must acknowledge that these are the buildings that the leaders of the Rising ended up in and No. 16 was the building from which they surrendered. Subsequently, many of them were executed but that was not the end of it. In fact, that was the beginning. By any standards the Easter Rising, notwithstanding the execution of the leaders, was an outstanding success and the proof of that is that 100 years on, we are here in our national Parliament discussing how to commemorate it. The 1918 general election gave a democratic mandate to the Rising, which it did not have in advance. The people of Ireland voted accordingly when they got an opportunity, which must be recognised.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the Laois connection with the 1916 Rising. Most Members who have spoken already have been keen to emphasise that it did not all happen in Dublin and that there was involvement from other counties. I have been in this House for quite some time but have said only once before that a significant event of the Rising took place in Laois in an area known as Clonad, just outside Portlaoise on Easter Sunday. It happened on what would be known as the old Portlaoise to Abbeyleix road or the main Dublin to Cork road until it was bypassed recently. In the run up to Easter week, a group of Volunteers were given orders by Pádraig Pearse to go to the railway line outside Portlaoise and take up the tracks. The purpose of this exercise was to prevent British military reinforcements being sent from Waterford to Dublin to put down the Rising. The aim was to derail any train that used the route. The Volunteers headed out very early on Sunday morning and hid out in the woods for the day. They did not know about the countermanding order because they did not see the daily newspapers that day. They proceeded to do their business on Sunday night and took up the railway tracks. The railway company became aware that an incident had occurred and sent out a train with several employees to check the line. That train was derailed when it reached the spot. A ruckus ensued and several shots were fired by the Volunteers. Many people in Laois would maintain, with justification, that these were the first shots of the 1916 Rising, fired as part of the effort to prevent reinforcements travelling from Waterford to Dublin to put down the Rising. That event was an outstanding success and I mention it because the officer in command was my uncle, Eamon Fleming who was accompanied by another uncle of mine, Patrick Fleming. The group of Volunteers included about 16 men and three women. Thus there is a direct link between myself and the events of 1916.

Approximately ten years ago a 1916 commemoration committee was established in County Laois and it has erected a substantial monument at the site in question to commemorate that event. The names of all of those involved are engraved on the monument, as are the words of the Proclamation. I was fortunate to be asked to chair that committee in recent times and have been happy to do so. However, it is the other committee members who have done all of the work. The biggest project undertaken by the committee this year was the production of a film to commemorate and re-enact the events that happened at Clonad on Easter weekend, 1916. The film is called Mother because most of the Volunteers were single young men and women in their early 20s whose mothers were fearful for them as they went out on that fateful day. During the course of this summer filming took place at a number of locations where the event was re-enacted and the local community was heavily involved. The film crew and actors involved were put up in people's private houses throughout the county. There was tremendous good spirit shown by all of those involved. The film will be ready in early 2016. I must also thank all of those who were involved in the voluntary fund raising efforts and Laois County Council for the grant it provided to the project. The council, like many other local authorities, has a substantial programme of events planned for 2016.

I wanted to put the involvement of Laois on the record of the House. Members from other counties will do the same and it is right that the people of Ireland be made aware that the events were well spread out. I wanted to emphasise, in particular, my own family history. It is not something about which I blow my trumpet too often but it would be wrong to let this occasion pass without acknowledging the role played by members of my family.

I must stress that No. 16 Moore Street was the last headquarters of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic during the 1916 Rising. The Volunteers moved through various back lanes and side streets to get to that building from which they ultimately surrendered. The loss of their lives through execution was not in vain, however. It brought forward our independence and now, 100 years on, we are celebrating their great work. As a true Irishman I must say that I hope to see the complete reunification of the 32 counties of Ireland by peaceful means in my lifetime.

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