The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has placed a Preservation Order under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2004 on Number 16 Moore Street, location of the decision of the Irish rebel leaders to surrender to British crown forces after the 1916 Easter Rising. This action by the Minister accords the building national monument status and the full protection of the national monuments legislative code. The order becomes law unless annulled by resolution of the House of the Oireachtas on its next 21 sitting days.

Minister Roche said "This building is of immense historical significance to the State. This is the site of the last stand the 1916 leaders, Pearse, Connolly, Plunkett and Mac Dermott. They were outnumbered and outgunned by vastly numerically superior forces. Their actions ultimately lit a fire of Irish nationalism that led in a relatively short time to the foundation of the modern Irish State".

The Minister has placed the Preservation Order on both Number 16 and the adjoining terrraced buildings of Numbers 14, 15 and 17 Moore Street in order to ensure the maximum statutory protection is afforded to the site of the 1916 leaders' head headquarters. It is a statutory offence for any one to damage, injure, remove or to carry out, or to cause or permit, work affecting the monument, without the written consent of the Minister.

The building is already on Dublin City Council's Register of Protected Structures which affords it a certain level of protection under the planning code. The Minister said "However, the State must use every protective weapon in its statutory arsenal to protect a building of such immense historical significance. In the decade leading up to the centenary celebrations of the 1916 rising it would be unconscionable for the Government not to close any potential legal loophole which might result in the loss or destruction of a national monument such as No. 16 Moore Street to future generations". He added "This whole area of North inner city Dublin is steeped in the history of the rising as echoed by the names of its streets commemorating the brave Irish leadership at that time. I am delighted to now be able to add No. 16 Moore Street to this proud and illustrious built heritage. It forms yet another link in the chain of national monuments from that period including Kilmainham Gaol, Padraig Pearse's cottage in Connemara and the school he founded at St. Enda's in Rathfarnham".