FORMER LORD MAYOR of Dublin Councillor Mary Freehill said that she was alarmed to hear that the plans to list the former Central Bank building as a protected structure had been put aside.

Dublin City Council has delayed the plans to list the former Central Bank building as a protected structure until its next meeting.

A spokesperson for Hines, the US property company that bought the building last January, told the Irish Times it had asked that the listing be postponed.

Freehill said that at the last local area meeting last week, there had been unanimous agreement to commence with the public consultation.

In a statement this morning, Dublin City Council said that the listing was delayed only until the next meeting.

“At the recent meeting of the South East Area Committee, a decision on the initiation of the statutory process for the proposed addition of the Central Bank to the Record of Protected Structures, was deferred until its next meeting to enable the members attend a visit to the buildings at the invitation of the new owners of the former Central Bank.”

But Freehill said that they don’t have the power to do this.

“The listing of buildings to the Register of Protected Structures is a ‘reserve function’ of the council. In other words this is a function of the elected body of the Council.

The officials of the Council do not have the power to overrule the councillors in this instance.

The Central Bank has moved from its old premises on Dame Street to a new building on Dublin’s Quays.

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