Re: Re: college green/ o’connell street plaza and pedestrians

This is an absolute bulls**t objection and will quite rightly fail.
This is quite clearly predicated on some nonsensical notions about globalisation as Mr Duffy’s attempt at wit fairly clearly shows: ‘May they continue to grow and thrive and dominate the world as they are doing.’
A new Insomnia went in up the road without a whimper. The nearby Spar and Centras have all been granted licences to sell booze to drunks, which is a far more questionable practice.
Do these people honestly believe we should exclude new businesses from Ireland on the basis of their nationality?
What’s more insulting is the clear anti-Americanism implicit in this. It’s unacceptable for this non-historic building to be occupied by a major US chain – yet it would have been fine had it been an English or French coffee chain.
It was also perfectly acceptable for two of the city’s finest banking buildings (both just across the road) to be occupied by a pub and a furniture shop respectively.
There isn’t even an argument that this will somehow erode existing historical coffee retailers as Bewley’s are already gone and all the others are of very recent vintage.
And what does Mr Duffy even mean about the site being earmarked for a quality restaurant? Since when have restrictions like that applied anywhere.