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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
March/April 2022 17
around Moore Street was not reflected in the final
recommendation.
Claims that the compensation offer was
conditional on accepting the Hammerson
proposals have been rejected by ocials of the
Council and the Department of Heritage with
knowledge of the negotiations. Butcher, Stephen
Troy, has claimed his business on Moore St will
be severely disrupted during construction and
received no oer of compensation from the
developer. The representatives of the traders did
not participate in the vote taken by the Advisory
Group in relation to the Hammerson proposals
before it published its recommendations in May
2021.
The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has also been
dragged into the controversy after he publicly
endorsed the Hammerson project as the planning
application was submitted to DCC. He confirmed
that he attended a private meeting with
Hammerson executives in April last year after
which he provided a statement to the company
for a press release it issued some weeks later.
The Taoiseach was accompanied by the
P
lans to redevelop the north city centre
from the GPO in O’Connell Street to
Parnell Street and including the
Moore Street fish and vegetable
market have led to a fresh outbreak of
hostilities on the historic site linked to the 1916
Rising.
The lands, known as the Carlton site, have
been the subject of prolonged planning
controversy going back to the late 1990s when
architect Paul Clinton, and a number of property
owners on Upper O’Connell Street, sought to
develop a retail scheme and conference centre.
For almost three decades, the site has remained
derelict and a monument to the neglect, by
several governments and Dublin City Council
(DCC), of the main street of the capital city.
A row has recently erupted over a proposal to
compensate 17 street traders, who hold licences
issued by DCC, for any disruption to their business
caused by UK developers Hammerson, which has
been granted partial planning permission to
build a large shopping, residential and oce
complex on the largely disused landbank.
Details of a scheme to give €1.5 million to the
traders in compensation while construction work
is underway were confirmed at a meeting of the
Council in early February by DCC chief executive,
Owen Keegan. Village has learned that this oer
was raised to €1.7 million in early May 2021
following discussions between the Council and
the traders and that an offer of further
negotiations was made on Sunday, 20 February.
However, tensions over the compensation
issue were dramatically raised when it emerged
that a planning consultant acting for the traders
said that they wanted €34 to €40 million, or more
than €2 million each, to move their stalls during
the construction of the Hammerson scheme.
A subsidiary of Hammerson, Dublin Central GP,
had agreed to pay €1 million towards the
compensation package, with the Department of
Housing, Local Government and Heritage and
DCC contributing £300,000 and €200,000,
respectively, to the overall €1.5 million oer.
In a statement in reply to a question by SF
€34 to €40 million, or more than €2
million each, to move their stalls during the
construction of the Hammerson scheme
NEWS
Hmmerson scheme, viewed from O’Connell Street
Debate as to whether 30-year-derelict Carlton
site should be developed though scheme
demolishes much of the Moore St battle site
By Frank Connolly
RISING
TENSIONS
Councillor Micheál MacDonncha, Keegan said:
“In the spring of 2021, prior to a planning
application….Dublin City Council’s Housing &
Community Services Department, Casual Trading
Section began to engage in a commercially
sensitive process to try and put a framework in
place to compensate traders in the event of
development.
This was a tripartite framework with DCC,
Department of Housing, Local Government &
Heritage and Dublin Central GP Ltd. (Hammerson)
partaking to compensate traders as all three….
brought forward proposals that may have an
impact on traders over the coming years: DCC on
the upgrading of Moore Street, the Dept. on the
restoration of the National Monument as a
commemorative centre and DCGP on the delivery
of the Dublin Central site and Enabling Works for
Metrolink”.
The Council chief executive insisted that the
process was “entirely separate from that of the
Planning Authority and that the Planning
Authority has no role in matters of compensation”.
Two out of three planning applications relating
to the Hammerson project were granted in late
2021 after an Advisory Group set up by the
Government and including politicians, street
traders and relatives of those who fought in the
Rising recommended support for the commercial
development. Some of those who participated in
the advisory group have claimed that their
opposition to the development which, they argue,
will destroy much of the historic battlefield site
Butcher, Stephen Troy speking t
recent ‘Sve Moore Street’ protest
18 March/April 2022
secretary general of his department, Martin
Fraser, at the meeting on 19 April, 2021 with
Connor Owens, Ireland Director of Hammerson,
its development manager Ed Dobbs and architect
Friedrich Ludewig.
At the meeting, Owens set out the company’s
vision of the scheme including the restoration of
Upper O’Connell Street, pedestrian entrances to
Moore Street through a new public square and its
provision of works for a Metrolink station. He said
that Hammerson would retain all pre-1916
buildings on Moore Street and construct a new
archway to commemorate the Easter Rising. The
development includes the construction of 94 new
homes, 210 hotel rooms, retail outlets,
restaurants, oces and shops.
In a press release by Hammerson in early June
announcing its decision to lodge the planning
application, Micheál Martin was quoted as
welcoming the rejuvenation plans, which, he
said, “will enhance the status of O’Connell Street
by developing new transport links and delivering
new homes, retail facilities and oces which will
boost employment in the area. The locations
around Moore St and the GPO will see an
increasing number of visitors who will be drawn
into the seminal role it played in our history”. He
added that “it is important to continue to liaise
with the street traders and those concerned with
heritage conservation”.
Connor Owens joined Hammerson in early
2021 from NAMA where he was Head of Asset
Management Recovery, and responsible for
“driving returns from NAMA’s retail portfolio”.
Owens led the team which arranged the disposal
of Project Jewel, one of the largest portfolios sold
by NAMA, which included the €2 billion in
distressed loans of developer Joe O’Reilly.
O’Reilly’s company, Chartered Land, owned the
former Carlton site, and
50 per cent of the nearby
ILAC centre where he had
ambitious plans to
develop a shopping mall
and oce scheme after
Clinton failed to progress
his scheme in the early
2000s, and before the
financial and property
crash. O’Reilly also
owned the Dundrum Shopping Centre as well as
a 50 per cent stake in the Pavilions shopping
centre in Swords, county Dublin. The entire loan
portfolio was sold to Hammerson and German
insurer Allianz for €1.85 billion in 2015.
With the centenary of the Rising approaching
a year later, the Government agreed to purchase
14-17 Moore Street, from where the leaders of the
Rising surrendered in 1916 and to declare them
a national monument which would be protected
and refurbished by the State. In May 2016, High
Court judge, Max Barrett, ruled that all of the
lands and houses of Moore Street comprised an
important battlefield site and should be
preserved in their entirety. It was a significant
victory for those campaigning for the area from
the GPO to Parnell Square, including its lanes and
buildings to be transformed into a cultural and
historic quarter. If NAMA could be encouraged to
release 14-17 Moore Street for preservation,
there was no reason why the larger area
surrounding the national monument could not
also be secured from the state-controlled agency,
they argued.
Instead, the High Court order was appealed
and overturned at the Supreme Court allowing
the Hammerson project to proceed with the
support of the Department of Housing, Local
Government and Heritage and Dublin City
Council.
In March 2021, SF TD Aengus O’Snodaigh
introduced a bill seeking to create a cultural
quarter in Moore Street which was passed by the
Dáil without any dissenting voice. This did not
dissuade the Taoiseach from endorsing the
Hammerson project following his meeting with
Owens and others a month later. On 1 June, 2021,
Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, accused
Martin of supporting “a plan to turn one of the
most significant sites in modern Irish history over
to a private developer”.
The Taoiseach replied “that what the
Government is not prepared to do is stand over
continuing neglect of central Dublin more
generally, of O’Connell Street and surrounding
streets”.
You would not think that Micheál Martin was a
cabinet minister for most of the 25 years during
which the Carlton site has lain derelict, amid
repeated claims of corruption and scandalous
incompetence by the State in relation to the
country’s main thoroughfare.
In May 2016, High Court judge, Max Barrett,
ruled that all of the lands and houses of
Moore Street comprised an important
battlefield site and should be preserved in
their entirety
The High Court order
was overturned by the
Supreme Court allowing
the Hammerson project to
proceed with the support
of the Department of
Housing and Heritage and
Dublin City Council; and
now the Taoiseach
Hmmerson proposl for Moore Street
Reltive’s proposl
