Modern-day Molly Malones reacted angrily yesterday to a proposal from Dublin City Council to increase casual trading licences by as much as 500 per cent.
City councillors will vote on proposals on Monday night to raise the licences at various pitches in the city centre.
However, street traders have accused the council of trying to force them out of locations such as Moore Street to make way for development.
Fishmonger Margaret Buckley, who has been selling fish on Moore Street for more than 40 years, like her mother and grandmother before her, said she feared that some traders in the area would not be able to afford the rise in the licence rate if it goes ahead as planned.
"I think there is a hidden agenda to get the traders out and make way for development," she added.
May Gorman (84) has been a fishmonger on Moore Street for 64 years. The proposal to raise her licence from €150 to €750 is not acceptable, she says.
"There would be an uproar if they tried to get rid of us," she said.
Further up Moore Street, Mary Leach's flower stall has been in her family for generations and she is not prepared to accept a price rise five times the current amount. "We are meeting with the council on Monday in City Hall and we will know more then, but we are going to put up a fight," she said.
On Grafton Street, the proposed new council bylaws would mean a six-day licence for casual traders would double to €2,000 a year. Christina Dempsey has been working there all her life. "It's a lot of money. With insurance rising all the time, it is becoming harder and harder to make a living out of this," she said.
The council said yesterday it was not trying to force traders out of business but was trying to "recast the fees on a more realistic basis".