Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I went down there a few times to look at this. Obviously, the location where those who were involved in the GPO issued the final call for surrender is an historical monument. Now, this has dragged on since 1922. It has dragged on all those years. This Government decided to purchase the three dwellings - the three houses - that are now the national monument owned by the State. What the Deputy seems to want is for the State to acquire everything from the corner of the GPO up as far as the Rotunda, which is where the final surrender took place on the footpath opposite.

This is a matter for Dublin City Council. It has been bandied about for years in terms of who should do what, what developer owned it, what planning permission was approved, refused and objected to and all the rest of it. The Government looked at this and said that we were approaching 2016, the centenary of a seminal moment in Irish history. We are one of the first small countries of the 20th century to achieve independence. The Government considered that the State should purchase the houses involved, and did so. The State wants to put together a very sensitive commemorative feature in those houses that would be the centrepiece of the historical monument.

I understand from the Minister that the house was occupied just the other night and that quite a collection of bedding, sleeping bags, beds and so on donated by a charity were collected there after the people left. I am not sure what the relevance of that was or what point wanted to be made here.

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