O’Connor calls for council to CPO cobblestone site

The plans to build hotels at Merchant’s Arch and on the site of the Cobblestone pub are an attack on Dublin’s cultural heritage, according to Claire O’Connor, Workers’ Party representative for the North Inner City.

O’Connor said:
“Dublin is defined by the people who live here and their culture, yet our politicians and An Bord Pleanála are perfectly happy to see it decimated in the name of private profit. In their eyes, the will of the people comes second to the greed of private developers, who are solely concerned with lining their own pockets.”

“The idea that so many hotels are being built in the middle of a housing crisis defies logic, while what housing that is being built is unaffordable to most working people. Dubliners are being left with no choice but to move further away from the communities they grew up in, oftentimes having to move abroad. Public housing and the prioritisation of people’s needs is the solution to these problems.

“If the owner of the site is not willing to develop it in a way which meets the cultural and historic needs of the area, I believe Dublin City Council should purchase it under compulsory order. Private developers have shown themselves incapable of developing a functioning city, as demonstrated by the over development of student housing and subsequent begging for change of use permissions. To build a city that does anything other than make money for the rich, the local authority needs to use its powers far more broadly.”