Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There will be a considerable amount of agreement on what we have lost in monuments and heritage sites over many years. There will be a certain element of welcome for the Bill to ensure we have our protective tools in place. There is still room for improvement. I do not think it will come as a shock that I will mention Wood Quay given that my colleagues and others have raised this travesty. We are still looking at the Moore Street battlefield site becoming a possible travesty. We have partial protection of certain parts of it but not its entirety. We have to take into account the wider context of an area with regard to safety and security.

People have spoken about progress in regard to the loss of Wood Quay and other sites which was tantamount to vandalism of historic proportions. There have been major failures and we have to look at them. We like the idea of buildings and monuments. We reference part of them but we need to be far more specific about their surroundings and their context. I put it to fore that we owe it to ourselves, rather than the developer Hamerson and another shopping centre, with regard to securing the Moore Street site in particular. We all know the disaster that was the destruction of The O'Rahilly's home. None of this makes any sense. The problem is that we always deal with it afterwards. We have an opportunity and we need the Government to be a hell of a lot braver than it has been to date.

If we are speaking about prescribing monuments, we need to involve others. There has to be a role for elected representatives. In fairness, Dublin City Council has been to the fore and has probably been in the right space if we are speaking about some of Moore Street and particularly The O'Rahilly's home. The fact is that we have had not had protections. We have had failure across the board.

We all know we need progress. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, visited my home town of Dundalk in regard to necessary works, so we will have housing in Mount Avenue, but I know there are issues in regard to a certain archaeological site and a standing stone there. We need those protections, we need a streamlined system and we need it to happen as soon as possible.

I have run out of speaking time so I cannot mention the glories of the Boyne Valley and Carlingford Castle. I cannot mention the fact that I think Ireland's Ancient East needs to travel into Down and Armagh if we are going to sell a complete package into the future.

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