Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis na daoine a bhí ag obair ar son na cúise seo, go háirithe gaolta na bhfear agus na mban a bhí páirteach san Éirí Amach. I pay homage and thanks to the Save Moore Street groups and the 1916 relatives, and I express solidarity with the Moore Street traders.

It is a scandal that we have not developed a proper and appropriate national monument on the Moore Street battlefield site. It is a metaphor for the state that we are in and says it all - private developers rule. More than 100 years on since a small band of men and women took on the largest empire in the history of humankind and made a proclamation that set out a republic, one that is yet to be achieved, successive Governments have yet to develop the site as other states in the world would have.

The Minister lauded the Government's 1916 commemoration. Revisionism rules. Yes, the 1916 commemoration was a wonderful success, but mostly because of the great enthusiasm of those people who organised many events in Ireland and abroad in a real sense of patriotic and national pride in the men and women of 1916 and the republic they proclaimed. Does the Minister remember the video that the Government used to launch its programme? It did not even mention the leaders. Such was the outrage that the Government had to change tack. It was well done eventually.

The Government is once again being sly in how it is dealing with this Bill. It is not opposing the Bill, but it is kicking it to touch by tabling an amendment that blocks it from proceeding to Committee Stage.

The Minister has a responsibility - I believe it to be an obligation - to protect national monuments. She has the authority to vest that status on the Moore Street battlefield site. It is what she should do. She described the Bill as an "ineffectual gesture" and "unnecessary distraction". What have her Government and its predecessors been doing for the past 100 years? What have they been doing since I entered the Dáil? Why did relatives have to go to court? Patrick Pearse had a phrase for it: "Mór mo náir. Mo chlann féin a dhíol a máthair." The Minister should change her mind, support this Bill and, as is appropriate, develop a national monument on the battlefield site at Moore Street.

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