Yesterday, Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin, unveiled the Government's intention to convert the GPO for the purposes of retail units and office accommodation. This is the Government's shameful plan for the most iconic site of Ireland's struggle for freedom. This is the building outside which Pádraig Pearse in Easter 1916 read aloud the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. This is the building inside of which James Connolly led brave volunteers to fight for Irish Independence. Dublin is the city that fought the British Empire. The Irish revolution broke the most powerful empire on earth at the time, and the GPO was at the epicentre of that rebellion. Our patriots took on the British colonisers and beat them. Nowhere else in the world, in no other country that has fought for its independence, would there be a government so determined to desecrate its hallowed ground. I ask that a stop is put to this cultural and social vandalism.

That is not correct, and Sinn Féin does not have a monopoly when it comes to association with the heroes of 1916. Many of us in Fianna Fáil have a strong connection with those people who fought in 1916. The Deputy needs to accurately represent what was stated yesterday. It was stated that the GPO complex will be redeveloped as an ambitious flagship project, as a mixed-use development with a combination of cultural, retail and office components, befitting the national historical and cultural importance of the site. We need to recognise that the GPO is a huge site. I suspect the last thing Pádraig Pearse or James Connolly would want is for us to have it fossilised the way it was back in 1916. It is a vibrant, valuable site in the centre of the city. It represents not only our great history but also the future.