I thank the Minister for taking this. I represent Dublin South-Central, the premier tourist route in the country. Others might disagree with that but the facts speak for themselves. You start at Trinity College and walk a straight line that brings you through Trinity College to the Iveagh Markets, St. James's Hospital - the old South Dublin Union - Roe and Co. and Guinness. Then you find yourself at the Royal Hospital, and then onto Kilmainham Gaol - where I am a member of the board - and the Phoenix Park. All of these are in Dublin 8, apart from the starting point at Trinity. I am here as a bit of a grouch, I suppose. I am not normally a grouch but I refer to decisions over the past number of years in relation to the Liberties, our old town that has been neglected for so long. It is a deliberate neglect, with its problems, poverty and addiction but also the joyousness of its community in regard to what it offers. The Liberties, our old town, is in decay and that decay is built by the glass cages growing up around us. Hats off, in a way, to the guys who occupied the Ardee House pub recently in protest at vacancies, voids, dereliction and the lack of community centres. We do not have a community centre in Dublin 8. It was burned to the ground and still has not opened five years on. Last week, I organised, along with the Bridgefoot Street Residents Association, a protest outside a granted aparthotel, the edifice of which is faceless, featureless, bland and adds nothing to the Liberties. It is a unique space that could be incorporated into the vision of what our old town could be. The Liberties has reached a tipping point. Even the judge in the Ardee House pub occupation case is sympathetic to the occupiers and their demands and has given them extra time. The Vicar Street Hotel and the Molyneux Hotel developers are coming in and building. I do not know if the Minister knows John's Lane Church but the steeple there is very high. It is a top tourist attraction as is St. James's Church. They are going to block that out. They are going to block and box in our flat complexes. You just see cranes all around them. The Minister knows the controversy around Oliver Bond House recently but all the other inner city flat complexes in Dublin 8 are going to be blocked in by tourism. The Liberties needs all of Dublin behind it. I put out that cry and ask everybody. I refer to the Save Stephen's Green and the Save the Cobblestone campaigns, and all those issues on which local communities gathered around and managed to make a difference. We need this old town. It needs respect. The whole of Dublin needs to support it as it affects all Dubliners. I ask that the vision for our old town would not be aparthotels, hotels and transient accommodation. Let us rebuild the community vibrancy that the working-class Liberties always offered to the entire city of Dublin.

Sentiment score: 0.08