INTRODUCTION DEVELOPER SHOULD NOT SET AGENDA Sinn Féin welcomes the opportunity to present our submission We believe that there are very serious questions yet to to the Dublin City Council Moore Street Advisory Committee. be answered regarding the dealings of the management We note the Committee’s terms of reference “to review, report of Dublin City Council with the various developers who on, and make recommendations to the City Council in respect have been involved in the site in question in the Moore St./ of the overall Moore Street Area Development, with particular O’Connell St. area. We believe it constitutes a planning scandal focus and emphasis on the preservation, use and development of and we should have full disclosure from Dublin City Council the 1916 GPO Evacuation Route and the Moore Street buildings management about all the details of this debacle and full occupied by the rebels in the final days of the 1916 Easter Rising”. accountability for actions taken. We welcome the recognition by Dublin City Council of It would, in our view, be inconceivable for the proposed giant the importance of the preservation of the entire National shopping centre to go ahead against the background of this Monument 14-17 Moore Street, the evacuation route from the planning scandal and in the face of massive public support GPO and all the Moore St. buildings occupied by the Republican for the full preservation of the national monument and the forces at Easter 1916 and the surrounding streetscape. enhancement of this historic quarter of our city. The Committee’s work provides perhaps one of the last That said, the necessary search for answers and for opportunities to ensure the preservation of this unique part accountability for past actions must not delay or prevent us of our national heritage. from addressing, as a matter of urgency, the need to preserve and enhance the National Monument and its environs. It has to be acknowledged first of all that the dedication of the We strongly argue that this question cannot be reduced simply relatives of the 1916 leaders and those who have supported to approval or rejection of the current plan from Chartered them in their campaign over many years has ensured that 14- Land for a giant shopping centre in the Moore St./O’Connell 17 Moore Street has been saved – so far – from the bulldozers. St. area. The last Headquarters of the 1916 leaders has come far closer to demolition than their place of execution in Kilmainham Jail. The current plan by Chartered Land involves building upon Kilmainham provides an exact parallel with the National over half of the site covered by the National Monument. There Monument in Moore Street. Kilmainham Jail stands today as would be excavations beneath the buildings and most of the one of the best preserved and documented and one of the street on either side would be demolished. And this would most visited historical buildings in Europe. be in the context of a giant shopping centre overlooking and dominating the National Monument. Let it be remembered that only for the dedication of a group of private citizens this sacred place would have fallen into ruin We understand that Chartered Land in its presentation to and would have been erased from our capital city. A group of the Committee has indicated modifications to the plan as volunteers, many of whom had themselves fought for Irish submitted in the planning application. These would of course freedom, banded together and through voluntary work and require further planning applications. campaigning they ensured that the Jail was saved and turned into a museum. Only then did the State step in. This matter is too important for a developer to be allowed to set the agenda. Still less so when the developer in question is Similarly, it was the efforts of private citizens, including in NAMA, which is, after all, supposed to operate in the public relatives of the leaders and participants in the 1916 Rising, that saved 14-17 Moore Street from destruction. They held interest. back developers and secured its designation as a National Monument. National Monument status has undoubtedly saved 14-17 Moore St. and its environs from destruction. WHAT SHOULD BE DONE than it took to rebuild much of the street after its destruction in war. This is not a local planning matter; it is of national and international concern. The preservation of the National Monument and of Moore Street and the surrounding streetscape would allow for the » The Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht development of an Historic 1916 Quarter encompassing Affairs should act without further delay to ensure the entire Moore St/O’Connell St. area. This would have the full preservation of the National Monument as ample scope for commercial and retail development, designated and to that end should refuse permission helping to rejuvenate this neglected part of our capital. to Chartered Land for its proposed works on and around the National Monument. We urge the Our capital city also needs a new Central Library and a Civic Committee to press this point most strongly on the Museum. Minister. » We urge the Committee also to call on the Minister, Why not enhance our capital and its main street by building in partnership with Dublin City Council, to enter a new Central Library and Civic Museum on O’Connell St., as direct dialogue with all stakeholders – the 1916 part of the Historic 1916 Quarter? relatives, all property owners in the area and not just Chartered Land, the National Museum, NAMA and All kinds of legal, planning and financial difficulties will be other relevant State agencies and n.g.o.s. cited. But with vision and political will and civic spirit such a » The aim of this dialogue should be to frame a new project could become a reality. plan to fully preserve the National Monument and to develop the Historic 1916 Quarter/Battlefield Site in In conclusion we believe that we should all be at one in time, if possible, for the Centenary of the 1916 Rising. ensuring that our people today and future generations have It is more important to get the plan right and to get full access to the heritage of the Easter Rising of 1916 – both it delivered than to reach the 2016 deadline, though in the written word and in the physical legacy of the buildings that is, of course, desirable. and the streets where our history was made. We must ensure that the 1916 National Monument at 14-17 In his last letter before his execution in Kilmainham Jail, on Moore St. is fully protected and preserved in its entirety as 8 May 1916 , Eamonn Ceannt wrote: “In the years to come designated and that the surrounding buildings, streets and Ireland will honour those who risked all for her honour at laneways are retained in such a manner that the potential to Easter in 1916.” develop this area into a 1916 historic cultural quarter can be fulfilled. We should live up to those words. This would greatly enhance our national heritage and tourist potential in our capital city as we approach the centenary of the Easter Rising and beyond. We need to see this issue in its wider city and national context also. Just over 90 years ago, at the start of the Civil War, much of O’Connell Street was destroyed for the second time, having been levelled by the British Army bombardment in 1916. Yet within a few years the capital’s main thoroughfare was rebuilt. For many years now much of Upper O’Connell St. has been dominated by a huge vacant site, a gaping hole in the nation’s main historic street. It has been in this condition for far longer remind ourselves how much we owe those men and women who, almost a APPENDIX hundred years ago, defied a powerful empire and proclaimed the Irish Republic. The motion calls on the Government to ensure an area which is steeped in Irish DÁIL DEBATE ON THE MOORE STREET NATIONAL history is developed as an historic quarter and battlefield site in time for the MONUMENT centenary of the Rising. I would urge all Deputies who have been elected by the citizens of Ireland to support this call from the relatives of the 1916 leaders. 22 May 2012 The condition of Nos. 14-17 Moore Street is nothing short of disgraceful and is The following motion was moved by Deputy Sandra McLellan on Tuesday, 22 an insult to the memory of those men and women whom we should honour. We May 2012: owe it to the men and women of that period not to disregard their reputation That Dáil Éireann: and memory by destroying a building so closely associated with their struggle. During a tour of the battlefield site in July 2010, the current Tánaiste, Deputy looks forward to the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising and the Eamon Gilmore stated: “Our commemoration of 1916 should not just be a Proclamation of the Irish Republic, a landmark in the history of the people token flag waving commemoration, but it should be real, and I think there is an of Ireland; obligation on the State to respond positively to the relatives of the 1916 leaders to go with this project.” I would hope the Tánaiste’s views on this issue have not recalls that in January 2007 the then Minister for the Environment, changed since then. Heritage and Local Government placed a preservation order on Nos. 14- 17 Moore Street, Dublin, under section 8 of the National Monuments Act The relatives of the 1916 leaders campaigned diligently for Nos.