David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Seanad Éireann calls on the Government to: - produce a master plan for the city of Dublin, to include provisions for the Dublin Transport System, housing development and environmental matters; and

- revisit the Living City Initiative and the commitment to the preservation of Georgian Dublin.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House, although she has specific responsibility for rural economic development, food and the marine, which indicates the priority the Government puts on this particular issue. When I stood up to speak, there was only one other Senator in the House and the Acting Chairman, which also puts it in perspective. However, that does not represent the way people feel in this country.

Dublin is the capital city of Ireland and as such it affects every single citizen in the country. It is a totally parochial place. I invite Members to look at O'Connell Street which is an utter mess. Forty years ago, Jim Mitchell, a former Lord Mayor of Dublin said that Dublin had about as much character as a second hand knacker's yard. If one looks at O'Connell Street now, what does one find on it? Knicker shops, amusement arcades, fast food joints, tatty souvenir shops and derelict sites. This is the principal street in our capital city and it is an absolute reproach. For that reason, I am calling on the Government to establish a commission to oversee the rejuvenation of Dublin. Nothing less will work. The local authorities have proven themselves absolutely powerless and, not only that, they have intervened to prevent central allocation of responsibilities.

In 1986 a Dublin Metropolitan Streets Commission was established but under the impetus of Mr. Bertie Ahern, who was on the council at the time, Mr. Charlie Haughey abolished it because it was feared it might detract power from the city council. It is all about politics and power. No one cares about the city of Dublin in and for itself. Virtually every intervention made by Dublin City Council makes it worse, with one exception. I pay tribute to one section of the local authority, namely the cleaning section. The cleaning of O'Connell Street is quite extraordinary because we are a genuinely filthy nation. We are a filthy race of people but O'Connell Street is kept really clean and wholesome all the time.

Forty years ago Mr. Jim Mitchell made the aforementioned comment about Dublin, 30 years ago we had the Dublin crisis conference, and six months ago I raised this matter in this House. A couple of months ago one of the houses on North Frederick Street that I spoke about and have been speaking about for years actually collapsed. That is the degree of attention to detail in Dublin City Council. I went for a walk around with The Irish Timesand pointed to the extraordinary profusion of black litter bags with no tags on them. There were up to a dozen such bags on some doorsteps. I received a copy of a report from Dublin City Council which found that there was no litter problem. There is no litter problem; none at all. Sure how would there be a litter problem? A dozen black bags on the front steps of a house does not constitute a litter problem. There is no enforcement whatsoever. People own properties, subdivide them and there is no enforcement in terms of maintenance or anything else. Even in terms of planning there are no restrictions on, for example, putting grotesque plastic fly-out windows on eighteenth century buildings instead of the proper up and down sash windows.

Quite a number of years ago, after a passionate intervention on my part, the former Deputy Albert Reynolds included three and half pages in his budget outlining grants for the restoration of 18th century buildings in the city of Dublin. However, by the time it hit reality, it had been hedged around with so many qualifications by the Department of Finance that only one person took it up. In recent years I have spoken passionately again on this subject at budget time and have persuaded Deputy Michael Noonan to do something. He produced the Living City initiative but in its first manifestation, what did it do? It dealt with Limerick and Waterford and deliberately and specifically excluded Dublin. Now we have a new manifestation of it with a limit of 230 sq. m, which deliberately excludes the 18th century core of Georgian buildings in Dublin. Even the smallest Georgian buildings are above that limit.

That this was done deliberately was made clear by a spokesperson for the Department of Finance. A document from the Revenue Commissioners states that the floor area of property must be between 38 and 210 sq. m. If the property comprises an apartment contained within a larger building, it is only the floor area which is relevant and not the entire building. The document goes on to refer to dividing up buildings. The Government's plan is to force Dublin's inner city core back into tenements. Is anyone actually thinking this through? The overwhelming majority of Georgian houses will be excluded from the initiative. A departmental spokesperson said that the aim of the initiative is not to create a tax relief for mansion-type properties. We were not excluded from the property tax. People who devoted years of their lives and huge sums of money to restoring these buildings were rewarded by not being excluded but by being hit with the property tax. Now we are hit by this further exclusion so we cannot make use of the scheme. Georgian houses will only eligible for inclusion in the scheme if they are subdivided and sold off as apartments. There is a commercial angle as well because they always get the little commercial angle in. Effectively, any dodgy modern unit can be incentivised for a capital upgrade for retail or service use anywhere in Dublin city or the other cities within the designated areas. It is extraordinary. This is going directly against the objectives which I put down. I know because I was the initiator of this scheme but it looks as if the will of the Oireachtas is being deliberately frustrated by some ideologically driven civil servant in the lower ranks of the Civil Service.

A report, entitled The Changing Face of Dublin's Inner City, commissioned by the Dublin Inner City Partnership argues:

...changes in the inner city resulted in ... the closure of facilities such as schools, institutions and community services, and a loss of vitality as the more dynamic members of the population vacated the city centre, either as a result of public policy or natural trends. It also contributed to the decline of the physical fabric of the city, as old industrial sites, institutions and the older housing fabric were left to decay. The deterioration of the physical environment was exacerbated by the blight caused by long-term roads proposals and by inadequate conservation policies or rehabilitation incentives.

There are no incentives at all for people in the inner city. I am calling for the establishment of a commission. In the 18th century there was the Wide Streets Commission which gave us the beautiful buildings we are deliberately and scandalously neglecting. We had a pavements commission. When one looks at pavements all over Dublin, they are an absolute threat to people's lives. I walk quite a lot in Dublin and the pavements are uneven, broken, cracked and part of them are tarmacked. They are a thundering disgrace in a capital city.

There is also a north-south divide. If one looks at Dublin City Council's publication, it refers to the future of the south Dublin core. It does not give a tuppenny toss about the north inner city where there is the best Georgian architecture. The Dublin city development plan 2016 to 2022 asks how we can release the economic potential of Georgian quarters and so on, as set out in the publication which refers to future of the south Dublin core. The Z6 employment zone includes office districts in the city centre, for example, Harcourt Street. Everything relates to the south side. It goes on to refer to Dublin City Council’s aim of identifying and protecting special quarters of the city’s historic features. It talks about the Parnell Square cultural project, which includes proposals to provide a variety of public cultural facilities, including a new public library. That has gone down the drain, but on the south Georgian side the council has a policy approach to stimulate the revitalisation of this part of the city where residential accommodation can again have a common use. As stated in the Irish Independent, as anybody who takes the time to walk around the area stretching from the River Liffey to the North Circular Road in the capital knows, it is a mess of dereliction. If the same were the case in the expanse from the River Liffey to the South Circular Road, there would be uproar. Look at the way shops are treated. Any old rubbish is good enough for the north inner city, but there are controls for the facades, facias and shop fronts of the south inner city. One then has the absence of owner occupiers. Owner-occupiers are being actively and deliberately deterred by the city authorities. That is what a living city means.

I will finish on this point for the time being, but I will speak further when I have an opportunity to reply. In the context of such an ordinary thing as dog dirt, where on the north side will one see pooper scoopers? Where will one see notices about litter? I live in North Great George’s Street. It is quite extraordinary to me to have to wade through mounds of dog crap and not have a single notice or pooper scooper. I have never seen one on the north side of the city; they are all on the south side of the city. It is considered to be targeted enforcement. Dublin City Council has introduced targeted enforcement measures for dog litter offences, including the provision of specific advice and other such blather, but it all relates to the south side. Dog litter signs have been erected, but they are all on the south side.

I have plenty more to say, in particular about traffic arrangements. There are two Luas systems that are not joined, about which I protested at the time. There is no spur to the airport and now we have a third Luas project, with the city in chaos. What they should have done was build an underground and we nearly had it when people lost their nerve under the influence of the environmental correspondent of The Irish Times. We have this mad notion of cyclists. Does anybody make sure those who use the blue bikes wear helmets? I thought it was a legal requirement to wear a helmet. They cycle on the pavements, against the red lights and the wrong way on streets. They are a danger. What about those who legitimately drive their cars? I pay €2,000 car tax a year to be confined in my own little prison on North Great George’s Street.

I will have more to say at the end of the debate.