Gary Gannon
Dublin Central · Social Democrats · Ireland
“I will talk about that in a couple of minutes but before I do I want to come back to some of the things the Minister of State said in his opening speech, particularly the last paragraph.”
“It will create a scenario where vulnerable people will simply not be able to get up their street for potentially three days because there will be a multitude of different providers steaming up these streets, which were never created for such large vehicles.”
“Those things should not be in competition with each other. The remunicipalisation of waste is going to cost money. That is a simple fact, but public services often should operate at a loss.”
“He engaged with the evidence and with stakeholders and came to the same determination, namely, that what we have at present for waste management services, not only in Dublin but nationally, is no longer tolerable. It has led to a system that is clearly not efficient or not suitable for the purpose intended.”
“Does the Tánaiste recognise the scale of the chaos in our criminal justice system at the moment? Thousands of cases have been adjourned. Victims will await justice. Backlogs are building. We now have habeas corpus cases taking place in the High Court. The Minister referenced my flowery language.”
“I want to acknowledge Deputy Sherlock for her work in bringing forward this Bill. We in the Social Democrats will be supporting it. It is a shame that the Minister of State is not willing to engage further than to simply vote it down on the promise that a review will be released in an unspecified time.”
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“It means passing the Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill to tackle discrimination in all its forms, reforming the family courts from the ground up with compulsory domestic abuse training for every legal and child welfare professional, and following through in full as promised with the establishment of the domestic violence disclosure scheme, with a victim-centred approach so that women have the right to find out that they are risk. We must go further, because the State cannot preach zero tolerance for domestic abuse while gardaí on the front line are undertrained and undersupported. It is no longer acceptable for domestic abuse training to be confined to specialist units.”
“This is where violent men are now being made, in bedrooms, gaming chats and social media apps, and we are doing almost nothing to stop it. The Government has to act. We must implement the recommendations of Women's Aid and the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women recommendations for Ireland. That means fully resourcing Cuan, not as a token gesture but with stable, long-term investment. It means expanding access to legal aid so women are not priced out of justice.”
“They face a legal system that is not only indifferent to their safety but complicit in the continued harm. The research published by Women's Aid this year is damning. Two thirds of women in guardianship and custody cases said the judges had failed to consider the history of domestic abuse. One described the family law system as being even worse than the abuse. A legacy of the system we have built is that it is one where women have to choose between safety and legality, where children are disbelieved, re-traumatised and forced into contact with violent parents. It is simply unacceptable. I said recently that violence against women is not new but social media is supercharging it. Big tech platforms indoctrinate boys with misogyny, funnelled through algorithmic hate.”
“We saw it again just last week. A former garda, who swore to protect, used his uniform, knowledge and power to impersonate a colleague online so that men could arrive at a woman's home to assault her. In the United States, former Irish Olympic swimming coach George Gibney now faces a staggering 79 charges of sexual abuse, decades after survivors first told their stories and were not believed. The truth is that these men are not hiding. They are operating in plain sight because the systems around them allow it. When survivors speak up and flee violence, when they seek protection, they face a family law system that re-traumatises them. They face judges who are not equipped to spot vital signs of abuse. They face court orders that force them and their children back into contact with their abuser.”
“It appears that every single day we wake up to another horrifying headline. Every single week, women in this country read the worst imaginable stories, imagining that it could happen to them. This week, we have once again heard the name Jennifer Poole. Jennifer was 24 when she was brutally stabbed to death in her home in Finglas. She was killed by a man with a long history of violence against women, who had already been jailed for assaulting a previous partner. Jennifer was of course neither a rare nor isolated case. Her story is part of a constant, sickening drumbeat of violence happening in homes, communities and families every single week. The perpetrators are often not strangers. They are not monsters hiding in the shadows, as we allow ourselves to believe. They are often our colleagues, neighbours and friends.”
“If transparency only applies when it is convenient, it is not transparency at all. Data protection is not just a legal principle but a human right. These regulations should not be technical fixes to satisfy Brussels. They should be meaningful steps to protect people's rights at home and to hold powerful institutions to account. I will support the motion if it comes with guarantees not just that rights are restricted carefully but that the people affected can challenge these restrictions and their consequences when institutions get it wrong.”
“I also have concerns for those who might have more difficulties navigating the system, the young person wrongly profiled, the migrant trying to challenge the decision, the person with literacy issues and no legal support. These regulations must not become another barrier to justice, wrapped in a legal cloak. I would like to hear the Minister address the following. Will these regulations include a clear appraisals process when someone's rights are restricted? Will the DPC, the OIC and the Comptroller and Auditor General be subject to independent oversight, not just self-review? Will the Government commit to a public audit of how these powers are used, not once but regularly? Most important, will the Minister confirm that these regulations cannot be used to shield incompetence or wrongdoing, or simply to avoid scrutiny?”
“It could have allowed for a blanket exemption with no oversight. That is not in line with Article 23 of the GDPR and certainly is not in line with the spirit of fairness and accountability. The Government's move to amend that section and bring forward these regulations is a step in the right direction. It is absolutely progress. However, my concern is that what is written on paper and what happens in practice are often two very different things. Yes, we need regulations but they must come with teeth, built-in accountability and real safeguards for ordinary people, not just policy documents that sit quietly on a website, untested and unread.”
“We are living in an age when the misuse of power is often framed as order and if we are not careful, laws once meant to protect will become tools of control. Under Ireland’s current law, specifically section 60(3)(c) of the Data Protection Act, these bodies can restrict someone’s GDPR rights to safeguard their own functions, in other words to carry out their work without interference. Until recently, that section did not require them to explain why they were restricting a person’s right. There was no clear legal test of necessity, no demand for proportionality, nothing to ensure this power was used sparingly and transparently. That is why the European Commission stepped in. It said, and rightly so, that the law as written looked like a blank cheque for public bodies to block people from exercising their data rights.”
“These are institutions we rightly trust to hold others to account, but when those very institutions restrict the public's right to information, to silence or withhold, even in exceptional cases, we should always leave room for debate. Scrutinising legislation like this has never been more important. We have seen the actions of the British Government taken in recent weeks under terrorism laws, not to target violence but to silence protest. People spray-painting planes as a symbolic act of dissent now face penalties of up to 14 years in prison and simply expressing support for that group is now a criminal offence. That is not national security but the attitude of an authoritarian regime. It should make us all pause.”
“It is important to speak today on this motion concerning new regulations under section 64 of the Data Protection Act. We are told these regulations do not introduce new restrictions but simply tighten up existing rules to make them better aligned with Article 23 of the GDPR Act. That is fine - indeed, it is welcome - but we should always be careful with motions like this to ensure that public oversight is maintained and that we are not opening the door to unintended consequences. This is not some abstract debate about data protection jargon. These regulations affect real people who are trying to access their own information or to understand the decisions made about them by powerful State bodies, namely, the Data Protection Commission, DPC, the Office of Information Commissioner, OIC, and the Comptroller and Auditor General.”
“Yes, I appreciate that but the point remains. I appreciate a local shop does not have a €10 million turnover but it comes to the same thing. We are not asking for this burden to be placed on the local shop in any town; we are asking for it to be placed on the big retailers that we know have profiteered on the very basics that people need in their presses. I do not accept the justifications given in the contribution of the Minister of State. I appreciate that her motivation is not in any way to undermine, but this contribution from the Government is an insult to people who are simply asking to be shown the abundance the supermarkets are taking from people in genuine need. That is all we are asking for and I do not think it is too harsh.”
“When the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, brought in the retailers for the photo opportunity in 2023, he assured us he would get tough on these retailers. I would argue that the evidence is in the cupboards of people the length and breadth of this country. All the Social Democrats are asking for in the motion is transparency for companies earning more than €10 million. I do not think too many companies that have an income of €10 million would self-identify as small local shops-----”
“They have seen the price of their grocery shop increase by €3,000 in a short space of time. Can we imagine the burden this places on their family budget? Can we imagine the choice they have to determine between what they have for dinner today and what they may go without so the children do not have to? This is the type of burden at the heart of this. We can measure poverty and I have just spoken about the indicators. The indicators are precisely what people go without. We cannot measure abundance, however, if we do not have data and evidence to understand who is making what profits and where. All we are asking for in the motion is precisely this. We are asking the companies to tell us what they make so we understand whether profiteering is happening.”
“We know all of this but, at the same time, people now pay more than €3,000 a year for the exact same weekly shop they got last year. There is no transparency in how the prices are set and who is making the profits. When the Minister of State and the Government tell us that the €10 million turnover threshold proposed in the motion would capture a significant number of companies classified as small enterprises under an EU definition, and that imposing a full audit and disclosure requirement on these businesses would represent a disproportionate regulatory burden, particularly for family-owned regionally based retailers that operate on relatively narrow margins, I cannot help but think of the average family in this country, whether they may be in rural areas or in Dublin.”
“We should also recognise that a measurement of poverty in the State is the absence of a second pair of shoes and a warm coat. Yesterday my party's leader, Deputy O'Callaghan, spoke about people not being able to afford a birthday present and, therefore, children not going to parties. Children and their parents in this country are not taking on recreational activities precisely because they live in poverty. This poverty is insidious throughout the fibre of Irish society. Not only does poverty cost and erode the very condition of a person, but it also costs the State more than €4 billion a year. Yesterday, Barnardos told us that 40% of parents have borrowed money just to cover essentials and one third have fallen into arrears on their energy bills.”
“I thank the Minister of State for her contribution. There were certainly some standout parts in her speech and I will pick out a few of them, if I may. To provide the context in which a motion such as this is brought to the Chamber, and I appreciate the Government understands the motivation of the Social Democrats for doing so, we should reiterate that throughout Ireland parents are skipping meals so their children do not go hungry. That is not a trend that started this year; it has been ongoing and captured by a number of agencies, including One Parent Family, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and a multitude of agencies working in the area of poverty. They have highlighted that parents are literally skipping meals. They choose between heating and eating during the colder months of the year. They are worried about buying shoes.”
“They deserve fairness, to be heard and a protection system that sees their individual risk and does not deny it by default. I fundamentally disagree with the motions because they do not strengthen the system or reflect our best values and the Oireachtas should not provide legal frameworks it has not been given a real chance to examine. We are not just debating procedures here. We are deciding people's futures, which is worth appropriate scrutiny. I do not agree with this trend that is happening at all. We can do infinitely better. It lacks respect for the mechanisms of Dáil Éireann. We have a justice committee that is perfectly able and suited to scrutinising this legislation in a more appropriate environment before bringing it to the Dáil.”
“We should be opting into measures that improve fairness, enhance protections and genuinely share responsibility across the EU. These motions do not meet that standard. They move in the opposite direction in narrowing access, weakening discretion and raising the risk of injustice. We have not had the debate these decisions deserve, certainly not at committee level. There has been no meaningful scrutiny by the justice committee, civil society or legal professionals. People with lived experiences have not been included, yet here we are being asked to lock ourselves into a significant legal commitment based on limited information and no public consultation. That is simply not good enough. The people affected by these decisions deserve better.”
“We must be honest about what direction the EU's migration policy and fortress Europe is taking and whether that reflects the values we claim to hold in our Republic. Ireland has long stood for a humane case-by-case approach to international protection. That tradition is now under serious pressure. We are told these proposals will make the system work better, but for whom will they work better? Perhaps they are better for bureaucracies and member states seeking to limit arrivals, but not for a person fleeing violence or persecution. They are not better for the trafficked individual rerouted to a so-called safe state and certainly not better for the vulnerable people who have already lost everything and are looking for protection in a system grown increasingly hostile.”
“We need guarantees that legal status, services and supports will not be disrupted simply because a category expires. Any transition must be led with compassion and tailored to the realities people are living with. I see deeper issues across these motions. We are witnessing a trend, not just in Ireland, but across the EU, towards outsourcing our moral and legal responsibilities to processes that are becoming increasingly restrictive. Individual assessments are being replaced by categories. Presumptions are overtaking hearings and speed is being prioritised over fairness. I am a committed supporter of the European Union but I am also very clear-eyed about the direction it is heading.”
“The third motion relates to the transition out of temporary protection for people displaced by the war in Ukraine. I understand and acknowledge that this is a non-binding Council recommendation but it still reflects a shift that deserves scrutiny. Since 2022, Ukrainians in Ireland have been protected under the temporary protection directive. It has allowed people to live, work and access education and healthcare. Now, there is pressure across the EU to move these individuals into long-term residence schemes. In theory, that may be reasonable but unless the transition is carefully managed, with clear safeguards, people will fall through the cracks. That includes children in the schools, elderly people with care needs, people with disabilities and those still living in emergency accommodation.”
“It would make it significantly easier to reject applications based on the route a person travelled, not the substance of his or her claim. Under current Irish law, we have only designated the UK as a safe third country. This motion would dramatically lower that threshold. In fact, simply passing through an airport in a designated state without ever claiming asylum there or even being offered protection could be grounds for refusal. That is not how a fair asylum system should operate. People often travel through so-called safe countries because they have no other option. They may not be permitted to seek asylum there, they may face discrimination and they may still be at risk, but under this motion, those experiences would be disregarded and their applications could be dismissed automatically.”
“The proposed list includes countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh and India, but we know, and I presume the Government knows, that these countries are not safe for everyone. LGBTQI communities still face criminalisation and violence. Religious minorities and political dissidents are regularly targeted. Being from a stable country does not mean one is from a safe country. This motion risks replacing the essential, nuanced, case-by-case approach with blanket assumptions. It shifts the burden onto applicants to prove that their countries, which are now officially labelled "safe", are in fact unsafe for them. That is already difficult and traumatising and this change will only make it even harder. The second motion relates to the concept of a safe third country.”
“These are proposals that will fundamentally shape who gets a fair hearing in Ireland, who is labelled "safe" without individual assessment and who can be turned away based not on their need for protection, but on the route they travelled, and once we opt in, we become bound by rules we did not help shape and cannot revise unilaterally. Let me take each motion in turn. The first motion proposes a new EU-level list of safe countries of origin. This is a significant change. Under current Irish law, specifically section 72 of the International Protection Act 2015, we determine the list ourselves, based on evidence, our own standards and our international obligations. This regulation would replace that discretion with a binding EU-wide list.”
“I want to raise the concerns that I raised at Tuesday’s meeting of the justice committee. What we are being asked to debate today amounts to a significant reshaping of Ireland's approach to international protection and asylum, yet the Oireachtas and its justice committee have not had an appropriate opportunity to properly scrutinise what is proposed before it has been brought here. We are facing three major EU motions, and we are being given no detailed pre-legislative scrutiny, no committee hearings with legal experts, no engagement with human rights organisations or affected communities, and just over three hours of total debate time. That appears to be an exercise in rubber-stamping by the Dáil. These are not technical amendments or background regulations.”
“The Minister has referred to the fact that juries are often asked to leave the courtroom for discussion to take place on a point of law. Nobody is seeking to change that. There are often contested points of law and it is fine for them to be discussed between the legal teams and the judge. Juries can still leave on those grounds, but where it matters is when it comes to a judgment by a jury of one's peers. Could the Minister speak to the determination of the Supreme Court on the Higgins case? How has that not impacted on his own assessment?”
“I listened intently to the Minister's contribution in response to the points made by the speaker to my left, Deputy Carthy, and the speaker behind me, Deputy Mattie McGrath, but I did not hear him refer to what happened following the Higgins case. I have a simple question: why is he proceeding with the abolition when the law on which the proposal is based has subsequently been swept away by the Supreme Court in the Higgins case and replaced with guidelines on damages, which we clearly know are working? There have been genuine improvements. There has also been a Court of Appeal case based on the Supreme Court judgment in the Higgins case. To be honest, I do not get a sense that the Minister is committed to this change himself.”
“A trial by one's peers is a fundamental part of all democracies. Removing it is a step that goes beyond the line that most of us are willing to tolerate. I would love to support many aspects of the Bill, as it has many worthy parts. Oireachtas committees have commissioned reports and people across the political spectrum have spoken about the ideal of maintaining juries. To remove them at this point is unfair. It is unbecoming of a modern democracy. It is not in keeping with where we have developed from, going on from the Higgins case. This is something the Minister can do that would make a real difference. I understand that we have had this debate previously and I understand the position the Minister took on the programme for Government, but I also think there is a time for leadership and a scenario like this will demonstrate it.”
“We will have handed over total control of these cases to a judicial system that, however skilled or fair, does not represent the public in the exact same way. We will have done it with no real justification and no evidence to support it. I am asking the Minister and other Members to think hard about this, not just about the headlines or the briefings but about what kind of justice system we are building. This is not about speeding things up. Rather, it is about fairness, so I want to support the amendments that maintain jury trials in defamation cases and all cases. We need to keep juries and keep the people at the heart of democracy. There is much in this Bill that is very worthwhile and there is a lot that I would like to support. However, once we push beyond the line of removing juries from cases, what is next?”
“It is pertinent to point out again that the Minister himself spoke in the past about the abolition of juries in defamation cases. I agreed with that stance at the time and I still do. Supporting this amendment, which many of us are supporting, would reflect that same principle. The Bill already brings in some reforms, including the anti-SLAPP protections, clearer defences and a more structured approach to damages. These are really good changes and will make a difference, and they should be given the chance to work. However, there is no good reason to push forward and remove juries on top of that. This is not some tiny, procedural tweak. It is a major shift in how justice is done, and once juries are gone, they are gone for good. That part of public involvement in justice will be gone, too.”
“They bring their experience, perspective and values into the courtroom. In defamation cases, when someone's good name and reputation are on the line, this clearly matters now more than ever. The truth is that the Judiciary still does not reflect the full diversity of Irish society. That is just a fact. Until this changes, juries provide balance. They make sure that people are not judged solely by a professional class that does not always reflect the country as a whole. Jury trials in defamation cases go all the way back to Magna Carta. They still exist in the UK, the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. If we get rid of them here, we will not be catching up. Rather, we will be stepping outside the line of comparable legal systems.”
“Whatever problems existed were addressed in the Higgins case where the Supreme Court laid out clear guidance on how juries should operate in defamation trials. The idea that this is still a problem does not reflect reality. We are also told that removing juries will make the system more efficient, but there is no data to back this up. When juries were removed from personal injury cases in the UK, it did not speed anything up. In fact, some cases took longer. If delays are the issue, let us talk honestly. Ireland has one of the lowest number of judges per head of population in Europe. This is the problem, not juries. Beyond logistics and efficiency, this comes down to something deeper, namely, public trust in the justice system. Juries are one of the last remaining ways ordinary people can actually take part in legal decisions.”
“A few weeks ago, I met the former High Court judge Bernard Barton. Mr. Justice Barton had previously come to Leinster House, sat in the audiovisual room, presented to TDs and Senators and laid out a very clear warning about the dangers of removing juries from cases. The advocacy to retain juries has come from those without an agenda. They have spent their entire working lives in the courts and have told us in no uncertain terms that removing juries is a dangerous mistake. We know that judges tend not to get involved in debates like this, so for them to step forward, write to us and come in person says something and we would be foolish not to listen. We keep hearing the argument that jury trials cause delays or lead to unpredictable results but that is simply not true anymore.”
“Once again, I will table an amendment today to retain juries. They are vital in defamation cases in the High Court. I want to be clear about why I think they are important. There is a lot in this Bill that deserves support, such as the anti-SLAPP measures, which are welcome and necessary. Protecting people who speak out in the public interest is a step in the right direction, but a provision in Part 3 is very serious, namely, the decision to scrap juries in defamation trials entirely. Section 4 removes the right to a jury in every future defamation case brought in the High Court - not in some cases, but in all of them. From the day this provision kicks in, that right disappears. We should not sugar-coat what that means. It is the removal of a long-standing public safeguard from the justice system.”
“The question is not just whether we are horrified. It is whether we are serious because we have options. We could suspend military overflight and refuelling permissions as Costa Rica and other states have done. We could inspect aircraft at Shannon. We could block approval of sovereign bonds of states that are under investigation for the gravest of crimes. The State has told us it does not have a role so it is incumbent on us now to determine that through the courts and we are hell-bent on doing so because, when a genocide is happening, we are obligated to do everything in our power to stop it. Our history demands that of us.”
“That letter is now on record and OLAF has been notified. Senator Stephenson wrote to the Attorney General, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance and at this point we have received silence. Let me be clear that it is not about the VAT or breaches of customs regulations but it is about trying to find an angle by which this State can do the right thing. Yet, we have received silence. Ireland's complicity in what is happening in Gaza does not stop at Shannon. We are facilitating the approval of Israeli state bonds through the Central Bank, which raise money for the Israeli state. That is the same state that is currently under investigation for genocide by the International Court of Justice and we have now aligned ourselves to that case. In doing so, we are providing a financial pipeline for EU-wide legitimacy.”
“The Government said it does not know for sure what is on those planes and cannot prove direct delivery of arms to Israel but the reality is we refuse to inspect them. We have abdicated any serious oversight and in doing so allowed our neutrality to be quietly eroded. We have allowed Shannon Airport to be turned into what is essentially a military backdoor for the United States. In recent months, people throughout my own party and the Chamber have raised this issue. My colleague in the Seanad, Senator Patricia Stephenson, has raised issues formally and I wish to speak to some of those. Senator Stephenson wrote to OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud body, to raise concerns that Ireland is potentially facilitating VAT fraud and violating EU customs rules by not inspecting private aircraft and military-linked flights refuelling at Shannon Airport.”
“However, that does not mean we have done all in our power to prevent what we and the Government have now referred to as a genocide. The obligations that come with the recognition of genocide are not just to call it out, but to do everything within one's power to prevent it. There are two very significant ways in which the Government and Irish State are failing in those most serious of obligations. Shannon Airport has become a key node in the transit of US military planes. These carry munitions, personnel and equipment, many of which ends up in Israeli hands to be used more broadly in bombing campaigns across the Middle East. That is not speculation or rhetoric in Parliament; it is documented by Shannonwatch and it is visible in flight logs and on the tarmac.”
“Every day without fail when we turn on our televisions or open our social media accounts, we are met by death on a horrific industrial scale, inflicted by the IDF on the people of Gaza, including on children, healthcare workers and UN workers. There is no line it has not crossed or hospital it has not bombed. The Irish State has been stronger than most. It has verbalised our horror, tried to enact change at an EU level - only recently but it is no less welcome - and is now moving towards enacting some parts of the occupied territories Bill, although we will push for this State to go further. Ireland’s contribution has been good but we can do much better. However, we have not been passive observers. That is absolutely fair and I want to acknowledge it.”
“-----does not believe that public memory, public space or the ideals of the Republic should be entrusted to the people. They believe in markets, mixed-use developments and PR exercises. However, there are those of us who believe in something bigger, something more and something more truthful than that. I believe the GPO and Moore Street can be the centre of a living Republic, not one frozen in bronze-----”
“Those countries understand that difficult history belongs in the public, that honesty is patriotism and that memory is not something to outsource to developers, so why can we not do it? Why, in Ireland, is our instinct always a compromise to commercialise and to put offices where civic ambition should be? The answer, of course, is political, cultural and ideological because at some level this Government, in particular Fine Gael-----”
“A civic quarter could represent something far more than just the building, not a sanitised version of Irishness, nor a tourist-friendly package of 1916 memorabilia, but a brave, honest ambitious telling of who we are, who we have tried to be and who we can become. If we look around Europe, in Amsterdam, the Dutch Resistance Museum does not just tell heroic stories, it asks visitors to reckon with fear, complicity and courage. In Riga, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia tells the truth about Soviet and Nazi atrocities and does so in the city centre, not tucked away from sight. I refer to both of those museums for a specific reason. We talk about the fact that the GPO is a fairly massive site of nearly 25,000 sq. m, but both of those museums, in cities of similar size, scale and population, are bigger.”
“The statue was placed there with the attached symbolism of sacrifice, but it is also crucial to be aware that it is a place that has now developed meaning in the Ulster tradition, which gives us one more layer of tradition and meaning at the location. This was later adapted by the Unionists too, with the myth that he died defending Ulster from the rest of Ireland. Whether we believe in that myth or not, or hold it as part of our identity or values, that is okay, but even in our most sacred national building, we have this moment of shared symbolism, complexity and contradiction. That is what a republic should be able to handle. It is also what this museum, a museum of our Republic, past, present and undelivered, should be able to cater for.”
“It should be for the language movement, the immigrants, the Travellers, the queer community, the migrants and for all of those who call it home. We should also have a space where we can discuss the most difficult parts of our history, be that the Civil War or the Republic that was fought for and then relinquished to the church and other more conservative entities. There is no cultural quarter in Dublin without Moore Street. There is no museum worth building that does not start with the people who are already there. A statue of Cú Chulainn also stands inside the GPO. A warrior lashed to stone so he could die standing, it is a symbol that has taken on meaning within the Ulster cycle.”
“The GPO should not be reduced to an architectural backdrop for a few retail units and a modest gesture towards history. It should be a national civic space, a living, breathing museum of the Irish Republic. It should not just be a museum of the 1916 Easter Rising, although that of course should be central, but something far more ambitious. It should be a place that tells the story of this Republic and its origins, promise, betrayals, heroes, silences, possibilities and complications, all housed within the space. It should be a museum that includes hunger strikers and the women who fought for their suffrage, the revolutionaries and resisters, the trade unionists and the campaigners for civil rights, repeal and marriage equality.”
“We are talking about the unfinished business of that Proclamation. The Republic that was declared and the one that promised equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens has very clearly not yet been realised. We see this every single week with the protests that happen outside Dáil Éireann and the people who come into the Public Gallery for the vindication of a basic right, such as a wheelchair or a school place. This does not scream of a Republic fulfilled. We see this in housing, poverty, immigration and in how we have treated children, women and minority groups in the State. We see it in the fact that the most sacred civic space in our country is being treated like a planning headache, instead of a national opportunity.”
“We forget that women fetching water, children sitting by windows and elderly men trying to get to safety were all shot in the streets surrounding the GPO on that fateful day. On Moore Street, in the final hours of the Rising, when the GPO was burning and the rebel leaders were seeking to escape, local families were the ones caught in the crossfire. John O'Duffy, a pensioner in his 70s was killed crossing the street. Brigid McKane, 15 years old, was accidentally shot in the head by a volunteer who burst into her home in Henry Place. An infant, not yet two years old, was shot in her mother's arms. When we talk about Moore Street and the GPO, we are talking not just about a battlefield site but about the community heritage and about the people who lived and died in the shadow of the Proclamation.”
“What makes it worse is where it is happening, at the GPO, on Moore Street, on the very spot where the Republic was declared, not only in theory but in action. What we speak of tonight is not just nostalgia; we are seeking clarity. When we talk about Moore Street and the GPO, we are talking about two places that are soaked in meaning. We are talking about a week in 1916 when a group of women and men, many of them poets, trade unionists, teachers and dreamers, stood in defiance of empire and declared a Republic on that spot. We are talking about the homes, laneways and tenements that surround them, where ordinary Dubliners paid the price. Too often we forget that more civilians than soldiers or rebels died during Easter week.”
“It was ground zero for a vision of Ireland that still dares to speak of equality, self-determination and cherishing all the children of the nation equally. I support the motion but I will also go further. What is being offered by the Government is not just inadequate to the history, meaning and symbolism of the structure and its place in our history; it is nauseating in its limitations. A so-called cultural space wrapped in offices and retail outlets. That is not a legacy project or a tribute and it will not be functional. It is a failure of imagination. It is the kind of gesture a person makes when they do not believe in anything real, when the best a person can hope for is compromise and the worst is a cheap deal, dressed up in heritage language.”