Planning

‘Recipe for disaster’: Mary Lou McDonald hits out at O’Connell street redevelopment plans

Sinn Féin leader asked planning authority to block plans to create new pedestrian link between O'Connell Street Upper and Henry Place

Mary Lou McDonald: “The scale of the proposed overall development in the area is totally inappropriate for an historical location, dwarfing the National Monument buildings and the Moore Street streetscape.” Picture: Fergal Phillips

Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Féin, has labelled plans by a British property giant to convert a historic building on O’Connell Street into a new arched passageway as a “recipe for a planning disaster” that will “contribute nothing to the city”.

Hammerson, the British property giant that owns the Ilac Centre and Dundrum Town Centre, has plans to redevelop a series of long-underutilised buildings on O’Connell Street, Henry Street and Moore Street, which ...