Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am proud to have the opportunity to support my colleague, Deputy Ó Snodaigh’s Bill. It supports the 1916 relatives’ regeneration plan to create a cultural quarter around Moore Street and will preserve the built heritage of the street. The Bill does three key things: it gives legal recognition to a Moore Street cultural quarter; protects the built heritage of Moore Street from destruction; and will regenerate the local area to boost tourism and footfall.

Of particular importance is the establishment of a permanent outdoor market, which will preserve the Moore Street market, which has been trading at the site since the 1850s. Hammerson, a British shopping centre owner, was virtually gifted the site by NAMA. It is worth noting that Hammerson’s Irish branch is run by a former NAMA employee. We expect that a planning application for a shopping centre and office development will be submitted next month. It would be frankly obscene for us to hand over a national monument to private interests that will destroy our heritage and will not benefit the local community.

If we develop a modern historical quarter we preserve our history, language and culture, and put those values at the centre of the regeneration of the north inner city. A project of this kind will give an enormous boost to tourism in the city, in a way that also benefits the local community which has suffered due to decades of neglect by successive Governments. I am confident that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, will support this Bill because it is very similar to a Bill he introduced himself in 2015.

At that time, he said that we needed to designate the site as an historical quarter to protect it from any further commercial development work in the vicinity of the site. The Minister was correct when he said that, but he has a track record when it comes to saying one thing in opposition and then another as Minister. I hope, though, for the sake of our patriot dead that he sticks to his guns on this issue. This is important for all of us. The battlefield area was recognised as a national monument by the High Court in 2016 and the National Museum of Ireland has defined Moore Street as the most important street in Ireland for historical reasons. It must be preserved for the benefit of everyone. Turning it into a shopping centre and offices would be historical vandalism and it must be stopped at all costs.

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