Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I second the motion. The Minister of State is very welcome.

There is an old saying in the theatre that one should not follow children or animals onto the stage. One should also include Senator David Norris. I just love to listen to him speak on anything about which he is passionate and he is passionate about everything on which he speaks. I congratulate him. He is quite right. He lives in North Great George’s Street and what a great job he has done by giving it courage, enthusiasm, commitment and a belief in itself. Life has come into it.

I wish to talk about breathing life into cities as a whole. Senator David Norris’s focus was very much on Georgian Dublin, but there are many good initiatives from which we can learn and about which we can do something. The living city initiative is a great project to breathe life into some of our beautiful buildings and wider city life. We are luckier in this country than in some others that had their buildings destroyed during wars or were replaced by huge, ugly communist apartment blocks.