Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I strongly welcome the fact we are taking the time to discuss the needs of safety on our streets. I will focus a bit on our capital city, if people will indulge me on that. I am one of the many people who has chosen to make Dublin my home and put down roots in my local community in Dublin 11. My partner, my family and I know what it is like to be welcomed into Dublin. While my accent perhaps has not yet changed - it is hard to undo a Drogheda-Cork accent that has developed over 30-odd years - I am very happy to be part of that thriving, exciting community in Dublin 11. We have been very welcomed there.

Those of us who have been welcomed into the city of Dublin and its many diverse communities know what this city can be at its best and what happens when those communities are given the support and resources they need to shine. However, this week, sadly, we have also seen and been reminded of what can happen when leadership is absent and the problems of our capital city are allowed to eat away at our social fabric.

I spoke about the events in East Wall yesterday. I know they have been very distressing to many residents of a community that I know from personal experience to be an extremely warm, open, welcoming and multicultural community. The 380 individuals and families who will be housed in the former ESB building are already in extremely vulnerable circumstances. It is welcome that they can rely on the support and care of our State. There is no excuse for holding a protest aimed at intimidating or demeaning people to drive them out of an area. When my colleague Senator Sherlock spoke to the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, last Friday, she appealed to him not only to put the necessary supports in place for those individuals and families but also to address the major and long-standing shortfall in supports that exists in areas such as East Wall. Local Dubliners do not want people intimidated and run out of their communities, but they want to see political leadership tackle the problems of poverty and disadvantage that have been allowed to mar our capital city.The north west of the city in particular, the area in which I live, still needs significant investment to address some of the shocking gaps in accessing childcare, early years education, GP services and, in particular, therapies and greater supports for those with disabilities. Many brilliant service providers in the area need far greater support from the Government to meet growing demands for their work in recent years. The Government has to give confidence to the local community that it will do everything it can to support those fleeing from war and conflict and to break the cycle of local deprivation that has put so many services under strain. A lack of all these things has a negative result on public order and safety on our streets. A lack of these services drives division, forces communities to pit one person against another to compete for resources and leaves people off who should be responsible. We should be responsible for resourcing and providing supports in those communities. When those communities have been left for decades, social unrest will happen and people will blame the wrong people. There are bad actors out there who are more than happy to drive us to blaming one another and making people feel unsafe in their own communities and streets.

When we think about safety in our capital and the areas people mention, Members have spoken about O'Connell Street many times in both Houses. We think about the redevelopment, for example, of the Clerys quarter, and about ensuring the deal between the site's previous owners and the unions is implemented in full and that the community benefits clauses are used to establish a benchmark for good development of the O'Connell Street area and the city as a whole. The Minister of State has rightly spoken about the value of more gardaí on the beat and of the youth diversion projects to keep people out of trouble but if we really want to create a secure city, then respect and decent wages and conditions within the local communities are key. At present, we have high-end luxury brand shops just a stone's throw away from some of the most economically disadvantaged communities in our country, which have above-average levels of low-wage employment and joblessness. It is absolutely vital that our concern for a safe and secure Dublin and capital includes a vision of workers from inner-city communities and the north-west communities being afforded an opportunity to earn a decent livelihood within the city.

As a member of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media, it would be remiss of me not to add, in any discussion about preserving or promoting that which makes Dublin city a special and safe place to be, that we have to remember the invaluable contribution of our artistic community. For hundreds of years, the city has defined itself on the work of artists of all kinds who have helped shape the city's image of itself and forge a proud and open civic identity. Today, artists and cultural workers in Dublin deserve to be able to make their living with respect and security and yet we have seen a decades-long decline of artistic places in the city with countless creative spaces being bought out and forced to close in favour of office blocks and hotels. I was thrilled when my colleague, Senator Sherlock, played a really big part in securing new premises down in Phibsborough for the wonderful artists of Richmond Road Studios. It should not have been up to a local representative to be able to find artistic spaces and negotiate on behalf of the artists in that area. For every success story there are so many artists who simply find it impossible to make their livelihood in Dublin right now. We need investment in the long-term cultural identity of our city and the well-being of those who most define that culture and make it a vibrant and unique place to live.

We also need to make Dublin a place where everyone can feel safe getting around; somewhere where all of us can walk, cycle or take public transport securely and reliably. On this, we are currently falling short of our city's potential. There is a real lack of ambition to pursue the kind of radical transformation Dublin needs despite the success, for example, of the Capel Street pedestrianisation and Dublin's huge potential to promote walking, cycling and active transport, in favour of our current over-reliance on cars alone. Despite this, the greater Dublin area transport strategy of the National Transport Authority, NTA, only talks about reducing car mode share from 52% to 42% in the metropolitan Dublin area and that is across a period of 35 years. That indicates a real lack of ambition. We should not have to wait until 2042 or anything like it for a city that is safe to walk and cycle in. I noted the residents of Dublin have to wait decades before the city's air is made safe to breathe. At the moment, many of Dublin's northside urban villages are effectively being used as highways in and out of the city centre, bearing the brunt of commuter traffic and suffering nitrogen oxide levels as high as 25% above the maximum limit set by the EU. The poor level of air quality arising from heavy traffic emissions through Ballymun or Santry, for instance, is one of the greatest long-term threats to the well-being of Dubliners we currently face.

I have gone on a slightly tangential way around some of the issues we are discussing but if we want to make our city safe for people to live in, we have to consider things that are not just what we traditionally think of as safety, such as more gardaí on the street and all of these things. We need to think about making our city a safe and liveable city where people want to be. It comes back again to this. If we want to make Dublin the safest possible place to live where every citizen can feel secure in their communities and feel personally safe, we of course need a better resourced Garda but we also need serious and sustained investment in tackling the root causes of disadvantage and discontent in our city and communities; whether that is local employment, redevelopment of the city, promotion of active travel or crucially, improving access to vital health and education services. There is so much more that can be done to make sure every Dubliner or any other city dweller can feel safe, healthy and proud of their city.