Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 1:

To insert the following after "restoration and conservation of the National Monument at 14-17 Moore Street":

"; and

commits to:

— respecting the heritage and legacy of the leaders of 1916;

— ending the destruction of key National Monuments such as the O'Rahilly Home and Moore Street;

— implementing the Moore Street Preservation Trust plan for Moore Street;

— developing the GPO as a national cultural museum of the national struggle for independence; and

— purposing part of the GPO to pursue implementation of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic across the 32 counties of Ireland.".

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta Aengus Ó Snodaigh as an rún seo a chur faoi bhráid na Dála inniu. There will be a protest outside of the GPO on Tuesday, 8 July at 7 p.m. All political parties are welcome to speak at the event. Issues of this importance means that petty political differences should be set aside. We need to work together to make sure we send a strong statement to the Government that this is completely unacceptable. I thank all the campaigners who have been working in the Moore Street area for decades, especially the Moore Street Preservation Trust and the other campaigners who have dedicated so much time to try to lift Moore Street out of the squalor it has been left in and to raise it up to the heritage and cultural quarter that it could and should be. I was very proud to serve on the consultative forum for many years along with those campaigners and some of the traders from Moore Street.

Aontú will table an amendment to the Government's amendment simply seeking that the Dáil commit to respecting the heritage and the legacy of the leaders of 1916; ending the destruction of key national monuments such as The O'Rahilly home and Moore Street; implementing the Moore Street Preservation Trust's plan for Moore Street; developing the GPO as a national cultural museum of the national struggle for independence; and proposing that part of the GPO be used to pursue the implementation of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic across the Thirty-two Counties. In many ways, the most significant use of the GPO should be to make sure it is the engine of delivery of the Proclamation.

The Proclamation is the foundation document of this country. It embodies many of the values Irish people hold and yet it remains unfulfilled. It remains a document that is still in the making. It is our objective to make sure that happens.

We need to understand the significance of the GPO and the Moore Street area. It is a national monument. It is one of, if not, the most important battle field in the country. It was the headquarters of 1916. It is seminal in the moment of the birth of this nation, the ground zero of the independence struggle. One hundred and ten years ago the Union Jack flew over this city and every county across the country. That flag, or some version of it, flew for approximately 500 years in this country. It represented the largest empire the world has ever seen and it seemed immovable.

The generation that came in 1916 was probably one of the weakest generations Ireland had ever seen. It was a generation not far from the damage of An Gorta Mór, the Famine, when 1 million people died and 1 million people were forced to emigrate. The Irish nation at that time was on its knees and yet this generation set the objective of trying to remove a flag - and all it stood for - that was in this country for 500 years and they succeeded in lighting the fire that led to the War of Independence success for the Twenty-six Counties. They did not do it for a pipe dream . They did it because there was an existential threat, that if Ireland was ruled from abroad, the rulers would not take into consideration the needs of the country. They knew that London's rule over the country had an enormously damaging effect. That is the case. Self-determination is one of the key aspects of a proper, progressive, functioning society and if London, Brussels or Berlin makes decisions, they will not be as good as the decisions made by the Irish people.

It is interesting that every Minister in the Dáil has the power to be a Minister because of the sacrifice that was made in the GPO. The very sovereignty they are using to turn the GPO into a shopping centre comes from the death and destruction that happened to the revolutionaries in the GPO. It is an amazing insult that the Government would use that sovereignty in such a disgusting way, by destroying the GPO and what it stands for. One of the reasons I think this is happening is that the Government is embarrassed by the GPO, the Proclamation and 1916 because when it holds itself up against the objectives of 1916, it fails massively. The current Government does not hold the same objective as the people of 1916. The biggest issue for the people of 1916 was self-determination and sovereignty. Micheál Martin has said even in this Chamber that he does not agree with backward looking aspects of sovereignty. His disagrees with the idea that the Irish people are sovereign. Another example of why I think the Government is embarrassed by this is that the Union Jack still flies over Six Counties in this country. Just 70 miles away, the Union Jack flies. Again, it stands for other people making decisions for Irish people. It stands for people in Islington making decisions around Brexit, for people in Finchley making decisions about taxes or people in Birmingham making decisions about how royalties for resources in the North of Ireland are paid to the British Crown. The very fact Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have divorced themselves from the objective of the Proclamation to make sure self-determination is a 32-county experience is another reason the southern Government is so embarrassed by all this.

To recognise the value the Government places on these objectives and the heritage sites, it is important to look at the actions of the Government in how it treats those heritage sites. Deputy Stanley mentioned correctly what is happening to Bodenstown at the moment. It is an incredibly cheap abuse of such an important site in Irish history. What happened in Moore Street is unforgivable. Moore Street was meant to be completely redeveloped, fixed and sorted out in 2016. That was the original promise of the Government. Right now, Moore Street is a location for alcoholism, drugs, urination and defecation. That is what the Government thinks of the national monument that is Moore Street. The Government actually went to court to take away national monument status from Moore Street. That is what it thinks of Moore Street. Here we are again, treating the very centre or ground zero of the revolution, the GPO, badly by turning it into some tatty type of shopping centre. It is an incredibly poor thing. The Government allowed The O'Rahilly's house to be completely demolished overnight. I made pleas directly over and over to then Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to stop it happening and the Government sat on its hands. Then a few weeks later, Micheál Martin said it should not have happened, but when he had the power to do something, he remained completely silent about it.

The problem I have in all of this is that the particular site that includes the GPO and Moore Street offers wonderful opportunities to this country. It offers an opportunity for a heritage, cultural centre that could be the heartbeat of both the city and the country. It offers an opportunity for the use of the Irish language and for theatre, writing and the arts to have a home, yet the Government has allowed a building contractor to develop plans to smash through the terrace which the soldiers of the Republic tried to tunnel through to make their escape, beside where The O'Rahilly was killed in a hail of bullets by the British. It is just bonkers.

The reason I do not believe the Government is that one of the attributes of the Government when it says "No" is to say "Yes". I have seen Ministers go out to the gates of Leinster House on a regular basis putting their hands around campaign groups, saying "Yes" to them, getting into the photographs and giving big smiles and then coming into Leinster House and vote against them. The same happened when I tabled a Bill to make sure Moore Street would be recognised as a national monument. Fianna Fáilers and Fine Gaelers got up one after another to say they supported the objective, yet they voted against my Bill. There is a deep level of cynicism and lack of truth when it comes to the Government on developing Moore Street.

I had the opportunity, thankfully, to visit the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam and I remember it. It is an immersive museum. When you look out the window, you feel like you are in 1944. You expect to see German soldiers on the street because the museum is so powerful. It is in phenomenal demand from locals and international tourists. It is extremely educational with regard to what happened during the Second World War. The educational use alone is profound, yet when we ask the Government to do something similar with our national heritage, it is ignored.

I will talk about one other aspect of national heritage, namely the Irish language. The Irish language is another thing the Government treats like rubbish. There are fewer children going to Gaelscoileanna now than ten years ago. Is that not an incredible statistic to trot out? The level of money going into Foras na Gaeilge is reducing every year. It was at one stage the same as the Arts Council and now the Arts Council receives multiples of the amount of money the Irish language does. The values that seemed to be hard-wired into the revolutionary period and the Proclamation of the Republic were to cherish "all of the children of the nation equally " - 600,000 children are in poverty at the moment - and the right of the Irish people to own this country, yet the Government is handing it away lock, stock and barrel. It is handing over sovereignty as regards neutrality. It is currently looking to get rid of the triple lock mechanism. All the political aspirations for independence are being removed. That is why I believe this Government has no meas for the heritage of the country and why I think it is embarrassed by it. If you hold that generation up against this generation, there is a massive chasm between the two. It is a chasm that, unfortunately, I do not believe the Government will bridge.

I urge the Government at this stage to not treat the GPO like Moore Street. Do not treat the GPO like Bodenstown. Do not treat it like The O'Rahilly House. Lift it up into the cultural asset, educational opportunity and wonderful heritage that it is, and allow the people of Ireland to enjoy it for generations.

See this speech in context