Dáil debates

Tuesday, 1 July 2025

GPO and Moore Street Regeneration as a 1916 Cultural Quarter: Motion [Private Members]

 

8:35 am

Photo of Máire DevineMáire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Deputy Geoghegan called this a "charade". Ouch; that really hurt. I ask for respect.

For what died the sons, and probably daughters, of Róisín? Luke Kelly wrote the poem on the 50th anniversary of the Rising in 1966. It reflected on where Ireland had arrived since Easter 1916. It was a lament of the direction this nation took, opting to shift towards a dominant capitalist society, often at the expense of our cultural identity and social well-being. Sixty years hence, the shift has solidified, arriving today at the "For Sale" sign posted outside the GPO. It is an insulting attack on our national identity and an erosion of our cultural heritage and sense of ourselves - who we are, what our build is and what our make-up is like.

For what indeed died the sons of Róisín? For "the faceless men who for Mark and Dollar betray her to the highest bidder". The Government welcomed, encouraged and relied on the hedge funds and created a market that has gone completely bonkers. Foreign investors now hold hundreds of billions in property and our resources with no restrictions and no tax. We have sold enough of Ireland to be but strangers in it. We see the consequences all around us. Some 15,000 people are homeless. Rents are skyrocketing. Lives are being lived precariously as homes become commodities. Did the Government ever stop to ask what it has done? It has given the elites what they ask for. It has bended the knee to the god of profit and damned the people of no property. The members of the Government would almost sell their own grannies. That is the word on the street and that is what the Government needs to be careful of.

Who owns this country? What are the Government's priorities for this nation? The rule of the wealthy has been imposed on the people, who are the owners of this nation. Our national treasure, Kilmainham Gaol, was let go. It nearly went to rubble until good volunteers, both men and women, stormed the gates in the 1960s and took it back. The Government will not do the same to the GPO so it should not think about it. It should say it is sorry and put its hands up yet again.

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