AN CAILÍN RUA: Fair city no more

It may have been a fair city once, but looking over from this side of the country, it’s fair to say our nation’s capital is not a place of which we can be terribly proud these days. In fact, there are so many parts of Dublin that are fundamentally broken, it’s hard to know where to start to fix it.
This culchie takes no joy in Dublin’s downfall, having spent a good decade living there. It wasn’t perfect, but it was had an abundance of theatres, performance venues, museums, restaurants, clubs, festivals, events, and all the things that make city living great. And for the most part, those things are still there, which means that the basic ingredients for a vibrant city still exist.
But when I left back in 2015, Dublin had started to turn. While the lure of the west and a slower pace of life was strong, Dublin was becoming unliveable and expensive, and untraversable. Much of my time was spent in traffic with the daily commute stealing over two hours out of my day and over four if on public transport. Cycling was not a practical option and having been knocked off the bike once in the city centre, I wasn’t keen to inflict the risk upon myself daily. But overall, living in Dublin was grand. It felt safe, it was affordable and it was still fun.
Fast forward eight years and the change has been sobering. Traffic issues have escalated and public transport is still crippled by a lack of infrastructure and investment. A quick search on Daft.ie reveals that houses in the estate I once lived are now renting at over three times what we paid a decade ago. Cultural spaces have been eroded in favour of hotels, hotels, hotels, and yet, overnight visits are astronomically overpriced. Inner city communities have either been decimated by gentrification, with many unable to afford to live in the areas in which they were raised, or by neglect and drug abuse. People feel unsafe on the streets. Night-time socialising is dwindling because safe transport options are lacking. We are familiar with the recent news reports of street violence. There are precious few community spaces. Take the old Iveagh Markets in the Liberties, a gift to the city by Edward Guinness back in 1906, left to rot. It could be used to host vibrant markets and support local suppliers, but neither the vision nor the will exist. Dereliction is rife with hundreds of vacant houses crumbling; unforgivable in the middle of a housing crisis. Homelessness has reached record numbers. And some of Dublin’s most striking architecture has been destroyed and replaced with soulless uninspiring structures that neatly encapsulate the endemic lack of regard by the authorities for our heritage, combined with abysmally poor planning policy. The main street of our capital city is a disgrace, an ugly embarrassment. All of the above is akin to criminal vandalism, but perpetrated by white collar workers in suits with very little lived understanding of or empathy for the communities they continue to hurt the most.
For a city to deal with two, or three of these issues is challenging enough, but the combination of all of the above feels insurmountable. It is all the more frustrating given the potential that exists, and the weight of funding poured into the capital in recent decades to the neglect of the regions, which ironically are seen to offer a superior standard of living.
Minister Helen McEntee has just published a 'safety plan' for Dublin’s North Inner city, involving upgrades to commercial streets and the deployment of safety wardens on streets like Talbot Street, Wolfe Tone Square and O’Connell Street. 50 actions across five priority areas have been identified: ‘drugs, inclusion-health and antisocial behaviour’; ‘family, youth and community’; ‘education and life-long learning’; ‘integration, ethnic and multi-faith inclusion’; and ‘physical environment’.
In my experience, while producing plans can be a valuable exercise in getting to intimately know your subject matter, the vast majority of them lack implementation strategies, budgets, funding and accountability, ensuring too many ultimately amount to glorified, expensive dust-gatherers. And let’s not forget, many of these issues are city-wide, not just in the North Inner City, who must surely be tired of being blamed for everything. Dublin City Council has been tasked with implementing several of the measures, which given their record, does not inspire confidence.
A piecemeal, short-term action plan designed within the framework of a five-year electoral cycle will do little to create meaningful long term change in the city. Instead, a holistic, cross-departmental and long-term strategy, adequately funded and staffed, with accountability is necessary, one that goes far beyond the lifespan of this government and the next. Early interventions within communities are essential to turn the tide and create bottom-up up transformation, as identified within the pre-existing Mulvey Report, but since when has community work ever been adequately, sustainably resourced?
Our country deserves a capital city of which to be proud, and one that is a great place in which to live, work, visit and play, and it can be, but it needs hard work, commitment, vision, passion and meaningful, measurable investment. We won’t hold our breath.