Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and also the relatives of the leaders of the 1916 Rising. Once again, we are experiencing living history in this debate. I compliment the Save Moore Street campaign, the members of which have been outside the gates this evening, as well as being in the Visitors Gallery. They have distributed a leaflet which reads:

A property speculator was to demolish most of the Moore Street terrace in order to build a shopping mall through from O'Connell Street. The Government has given Mr. O'Reilly the go ahead, with some conditions, including to renovate only four houses that were declared a national monument after campaigning, but which Mr. O'Reilly has allowed to deteriorate to a shocking degree. Although he owes NAMA €2.8 billion and is retained on €200,000 a year to manage these debts, he has also been promised another €5 million from NAMA for his restoration of the four national monument houses - a token museum of four houses, a cafeteria and toilets. These will be dwarfed by a glass and concrete monstrosity around and over them and the character of the street market, if it survives at all, changed forever.