Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to put on the record my sympathy and I am sure that of Members on all sides of the House to the family of the late Eddie McGrady, the SDLP MP who passed away in the past 48 hours. I had the great pleasure of meeting Mr. McGrady on a number of occasions and he was an extraordinarily compassionate and committed public representative. I extend my deepest sympathy to his family.

To follow up on Senator MacSharry's comments about Lissadell House, as a former chairman of Fáilte Ireland North West I was involved in the early stages of the attempts made at that time to ensure that Lissadell House would remain open for tourism purposes. I attended a launch of what was then called the Yeats Trail in the company of the late great Seamus Heaney in Sligo in 2008 and the portents at the time were very positive in that Lissadell House would be a centrepiece of the entire Yeats Trail but the court case intervened and the matter has remained in stasis for the past five years. I now call on Constance Cassidy and Eddie Walsh, following their victory in the Supreme Court yesterday, to give serious consideration to reopening Lissadell House for tourist purposes. It is the jewel in the crown of tourism in the north west. I understand their position, the fact that the question of costs is unresolved and the amount of money they expended but it is sad to read in the newspapers that the walled garden, which they restored, has returned to weeds and that the restaurant has closed down. I remember it being reopened as part of a shop in the old stable area. The amount of restoration carried out by Constance Cassidy and Eddie Walsh was extraordinary, not only in terms of the initial financial commitment they made but also the amount of money subsequently spent. It would be a tragedy if Lissadell House was to be lost to the many hundreds of thousands of tourists not only in this country but also overseas who come to visit the north west because of the focus on Yeats.