Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am speaking to Sinn Féin's amendment No. 185, in the names of Senators Warfield, Boylan and Gavan. Before I was elected to this House, as the Minister will know, when I was a city councillor, I worked with my colleagues on the council - ours was not a Government party at the time - to drive the Oireachtas and the Ministry and to enable the city council to take action to preserve Moore Street. In fact, it was a Fianna Fáil Minister and Government that initially designated 14-17 Moore Street as a national monument.

With this motion from Sinn Féin, the Senators are attempting to completely overreach on what is an independent authority. Our local authorities are independent bodies, and the amendment seeks to have legislation dictate to an independent local authority what it should do. Second, it completely ignores the fact the national 1916 commemorative centre is under development and that Ralph Appelbaum Associates has been assigned and is working on the development of a 1916 commemorative centre at the national monument in Moore Street. In case Senators are not familiar with that organisation's work, it is the same people who designed the African-American museum, the National Museum of Scotland and the United States Holocaust museum. They are not nobodies. They have done world-class work and I believe they will deliver world class in Moore Street too.

There is an irony in Sinn Féin trying to propose anything in Moore Street that overreaches on a local authority when its leader has blocked a €500 million investment in Moore Street, O'Connell Street and all that dereliction that is such a shame on my constituency, my community, our capital and our country. It shows the absolute gall of Sinn Féin Senators to come in here, put down a motion and pretend they give a shit.