Dublin Corporation announces plans to give O'Connell Street a £30 million facelift.

Dublin Corporation is hoping to change the city's main street which lacks variety in businesses and posesses ugly shop fronts.

It's the main thoroughfare of the capital yet in recent years it looks more like a fast food strip and nightclub mecca.

The plan is to replace some building facades to attract new businesses and investors to the street. The aim is to reduce the number of traffic lanes to give pedestrians priority on the street through wider footpaths and the creation of a civic space outside the General Post Office (GPO). There will be a competition for a feature to replace the old Nelson Pillar which stood in the centre of the street until it was bombed in 1966.

O'Connell Street is very much a place that people pass through and the new plan hopes to give them a reason to stop, shop or even live on the street.

The plan, if it goes ahead, aims to transform O'Connell Street in three years.

An RTÉ News report broadcast on 27 February 1998. The reporter is Carole Coleman.