The Green Party has called on Dublin City Council and the national Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to reconsider their scorched earth approach to the redevelopment of Moore Street. It stated that the current plans by both agencies to redevelop the area is flawed and dates from an outdated 1960s approach to regeneration.

Speaking at a rally last Saturday on Moore Street attended by 150 people the Green Party’s Ciarán Cuffe stated:

“We are here today to support Paris Bakery which is facing eviction in 4 months time and loss of 70 jobs. We’re here today to support Moore Street and its buildings and people who are facing the threat of comprehensive redevelopment.

"Moore Street is rooted in history; it is a place of heritage; it is a melting pot of the old and the new. It’s a place where stall-holders have sold their wares for hundreds of years; a place where businesses like FX Buckleys has fed six generations of Dubliners; a place where businesses like Paris Bakery where Yannick Forell and Ruth Savill and their 70 staff have fed Dubliners for many years. All of this could be lost if Dublin City Council, NAMA and Joe O’Reilly the developer have their way. Joe O’Reilly has debts of €3.5 dept, and yet is paid €200,000 a year by NAMA to sit in his office in Dundrum Shopping Centre plotting the destruction of Moore Street. His plans are to bring a new road from O’Connell Street to ILAC centre which he owns, or we own if the truth were known. That road passes through the Paris Bakery.

“Our worry is that he will kick out businesses, demolish buildings throughout the area and fail to get investment that he is seeking. If that happens the site will remain derelict for decades as happened on the Williams and Woods site on Parnell Street. That is not sustainable sensitive development, that’s a scorched earth policy which is dated and wrong. This is not acceptable in the twenty-first century.

“Instead what we need is: sensitive regeneration that would see existing businesses and traders supported and allowed to expand. We want to see People living over the shop, thriving businesses below.

“Our demands are:

1. Dublin City Council must produce a sensitive plan for the area bounded by O’Connell Street, Parnell Street, Moore Street and Henry Street.
2. This plan must conserve and retain all the older buildings and work with the new and established businesses in the area.
3. Dublin City Council and NAMA must Save the Paris Bakery and the seventy jobs
4. We seek an end to Celtic Tiger Disneyland Planning
5. We want NAMA and the City Council to support the existing small businesses on the street rather than the indebted property interests.
6. The Local Authority must sit down and work with all groups who wish to protect and retain the 1916 battlefield site and the historic urban fabric of the area"