Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)

I welcome the Taoiseach to the Upper House and am delighted to see him. I feel I should speak because he gave me the privilege of having a voice, as one of his appointees. However, in doing so, he might have a fight on his hands with regard to the closure of the Seanad because I do not think that is going to happen.

I only have one minute but one minute with a powerful voice is worth a mile.

As Ireland is about to take on the Presidency of the European Union, I ask that our capital city and, in particular, O'Connell Street and its surrounds, be restored as a European city scape of which to be proud. Throughout the Presidency, we will have reciprocal arrangements, meetings, procedures, travel and tourism between our countries, press, people and our capital cities. In that context, I would like O'Connell Street, in the great city that is Dublin, which boasts monuments to emancipation, liberation, literature, culture, music, art, drama, the workers and the great Father Matthew of the temperance movement, to be restored and remain thus and not become a monument to the menace that our city has become.