Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her presentation, for her presence and for her interest in this issue. I am from Dublin. I love the city, I believe in it and I want to see a vision for it. Dublin city houses people from all over the world and, indeed, people from all over this country. On that note, may I state my disgust at any Member of this House suggesting that this country or any part of this country is being overrun by anybody. I think that if a Member of this Oireachtas comes in and makes statements like that, we have to challenge them at all times. Dublin city is a much more vibrant, colourful, exciting and culturally rich city than the city I grew up in and we need to stand by that and defend that.

We need to have a 20-year vision for what we want Dublin city to look like. When I mention Dublin city, I am talking about the city between the canals. It is about what kind of transport we expect to have and what we want the city to feel like. I think we have to de-car the city; we have to pedestrianise the city radically. I have a four-year-old daughter and, I have to be honest, when I go into Dublin city with my daughter, I am constantly on watch for her safety because of the nature of how we have given over the city to the private car. If people go in with their elderly relatives, they feel the same thing. Why do we not have a radical approach to O'Connell Street and pedestrianise it? Why do we not turn O'Connell Street into the big civic plaza that this city needs? I know Dublin Bus will have strong opinions about that, and we can talk about that and maybe we can only pedestrianise one side of it, but we certainly need to reclaim parts of the city that have been given over to cars and to recast our brains as to how we can enjoy the city more.

With regard to Culture Night in Dublin city, we should have a feeling like that at least every weekend. It should feel like a vibrant, culturally rich place where people want to be and want to be around, walk around, bump into each other and communicate with each other and have those human interactions. We should not just have that feeling once a year. It should be a weekly thing.

The Minister mentioned football. I am fascinated by her comments about what is happening in terms of integrating young people and empowering young people. If we go to any city in Europe as a football fan, as I tend to do, we see that football tends to be one of the ways that a city expresses itself. When we come to Dublin city, the football grounds are falling down. There are conversations around Tolka Park, conversations around Dalymount Park, conversations around Richmond Park, all in the city centre area, all League of Ireland premier league grounds. There should be investment in and understanding of that type of city that believes in that football culture, not just once-off glamorous announcements about Euro 2028 coming to town, which is fine. However, that always replaces the potential we could have for big European clubs to come here all the time if our league was invested in better, because of a better experience of going to a League of Ireland ground, because of a professional women's league, because we have players here who are going to the World Cup and who are playing in that league. This is the sort of basic thing that every other city in Europe takes for granted.

The Minister talked about policing. We cannot police our way out of this. We have to address, as has been suggested, the underlying issues of housing, poverty, disadvantage and drugs. I see the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is present. It is a scandal that the injecting centre has not been up and running since it was passed by these Houses in 2017. It is an incredible failure of the imagination of this Government to make it happen. I say that directly to the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, because there could have been an imaginative approach to how we can stop people dying in alleyways in our city centre. Other European countries and cities across Canada and Australia have made these interventions because they believe in their city and they understand their city. Yet, even though legislation has been passed for the last five years, we waited for a High Court case and we did not have a contingency plan. We could have a mobile clinic or we could have a mobile intervention - we could have done something – but, no, we have just left the situation to persist and people are still dying in the alleyways of our city centre. We are letting it happen because, fundamentally, they are not important enough and if they do not overdose fatally, they leave a lot of the drug litter behind them and there could be excrement involved - it is a pretty unsightly experience for everybody. These interventions are important. It sometimes seems as if the Government is waiting for something else to happen or for somebody else to make it happen.

There are some practical suggestions. We need a task force of sorts to look at five, ten, 15 or 20 years hence. We need to talk radically about pedestrianisation and we need to talk radically about the need to de-car the city. People will complain about that but we have to do it. We need to talk radically about making public transport free, so people can hop on a free bus in Dublin, hop on a free train in Dublin, hop on the Luas in Dublin for free, for all of those opportunities that people want to have of coming into the city centre and enjoying a cultural experience and it being free because we have invested in Dublin city in that way.

On policing, we absolutely need a sense of security in our city centre but it is as if it is the go-to political response that we always say "more gardaí". Yes, we will always need more gardaí and there will never be enough gardaí, but we have to make the city policeable. If we have that volume of people who are in the city enjoying themselves and believing in the city, crime goes down not because there are gardaí everywhere, but because people feel prouder of it, they feel part of it, they feel connected to it and they feel respected by it. I taught in a part of the north inner-city and the kids would say they did not feel respected when they walked outside their own area, and if they walked into a shop they would get followed because of how they speak, how they dress or the address they are from. We need to respect this city and the people from the city.

People talk about resources. I would make this bald point, and I direct this at the Minister’s party colleagues who sit on Dublin City Council and, indeed, many party groups on Dublin City Council who consistently, every year, cut the funding through the local property tax, some €12 million, that could be available to do all of the things that people in this Chamber are now complaining about. Every year, consistently, some groups in the city council, including the Minister’s group, cut the funding to Dublin City Council. We cannot complain about lack of resources, lack of bins, lack of infrastructure, lack of Dublin City Council resources, if consistently, every single year, political parties in the chamber of Dublin City Council, having the opportunity to stand up for the city, do the populist thing and cut the property tax by 15%.

In saying all of that, I feel that, as others have said, the potential for a directly elected mayor of the city would give the civic leadership that has been lacking. I know there has been a citizens’ assembly on that and we want to see movement on it, and the Labour Party is supportive of that role. If we had that civic leadership, we would have buy-in to a long-term vision for the city. Let us be honest, the mayor is somebody who is in for a year and out after a year and does not really have an awful lot of power as all of the power is with the city manager or the CEO of the city council. There is a democratic deficit and the mayor's role has been reduced to being somebody who maybe gives moral authority to a cause or gives a level of civic leadership, but does not have the five-year term of office with the powers that are necessary in order to drive real change or accountability. For example, when the issue comes up about O’Connell Street, who is the obvious political leader to go to? Who is the obvious person who is going to feel responsible for this? Is it the Minister for Justice, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications or somebody else? There could even potentially be justification for a junior Minister for Dublin. We have junior Ministers for everything else so that could be something the Government could consider as well and it could work on a national level with the local city council.

See this speech in context