Foreword by David McRedmond
Affection for Dublin - “town” - is genuinely held and deeply felt. Dublin is beloved and though not a world city like
London, New York or Paris, it is still a great and distinct European city; arguably the literary capital of the English speaking world; and it is beautiful, located between the Dublin Mountains and the Irish Sea. The city has become a
global technology hub, and an international finance centre.
But since the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, Dublin city centre has become less welcoming. Every stakeholder group - from local residents to those in Greater Dublin, shopkeepers and workers, tourists and foreign investors - report that Dublin feels less safe, is heavily littered, and visibly rundown. As the world changes, the city centre is becoming less relevant to daily life, and this is reflected in the material and social conditions of our streets.
Hybrid working sees fewer people in city offices than before the pandemic. Migration, whether refugees, asylum seekers, or the large number of people fleeing war in Ukraine, has placed a huge strain on the city (while also providing a capable and willing workforce). The online shopping habits which accelerated in the pandemic are growing inexorably reducing the intensity of high-street shopping. And a drugs’ epidemic sees many vulnerable people urgently seeking help in our inner city.
It was this scale of change that led the Taoiseach to appoint a Taskforce, an intensive intervention into the
future of Dublin city centre.
There is no lack of imagination or plans to improve city life. Dublin City Council (DCC) does excellent work every day, constantly delivering innovative projects, often with limited funding, supported by the Gardaí, the National Transport Authority (NTA) and other agencies. Dublin does not need a new plan. Instead, the objective of the Taskforce is about delivery at a scale and pace to surpass the scale of the external challenges.
To that end, the Taskforce has agreed a list of ten “Big Moves” to revitalise the city. Most have been in previous reports but either have not yet been implemented or are sub-scale. This is a holistic view. The moves are interdependent, and it is the combination that will deliver exceptional change:
1. Revitalise O’Connell Street and environs
2. Prioritise the total regeneration of social housing complexes in the city centre
3. Convert derelict sites into high-density residential with provision for essential workers
4. Make policing and security more visible and add 1000 more Gardaí
5. Deliver more targeted and better located services for vulnerable populations in the city centre
6. Implement a dedicated waste management plan for the city centre
7. Operate the City Centre Transport Plan with agility
8. Offer Dubliners compelling reasons to visit the city centre
9. Create a marketing and communications function for Dublin
10. Evolve appropriate governance for a capital city
Through the deliberations of the Taskforce with the many stakeholders in the city, systemic issues have become apparent which prevent good plans being implemented at pace. Most are outside the scope of the Taskforce but need to be called out and addressed:
We need to restore our commitment to the common good. Too frequently, plans are stopped or delayed at the hands of special interests or individuals, either through complaint, political lobbying, or judicial review. Whether it be by moral pressure, a change to our judicial guidelines, legislation, or even constitutional change, restoring a commitment to the common good would see a rapid acceleration of new developments in the city (and the country).
Government can implement better due process and administrative standards. Ireland has been well served by successive governments and its civil service, which operates with integrity. But the lack of consistent administrative standards slows down projects and frustrates the work of agencies. A programme to install consistent, transparent and efficient administrative standards throughout the system could deliver immediate benefits. Civil servants, and state agencies can both benefit from subsidiarity and clear due process.
We need to calibrate projects at a higher level. It is not possible to cultivate a safe, liveable and hospitable
city through cost-cutting with, for example, fewer street cleaners, fewer guards and fewer flat caretakers. The changes in the external environment require an equal scale of response in the plans for the city. We need to make big changes now. The return will be in social stability and happiness; and in economic terms, should be measured by the strategic interests of the State such as the amount of Foreign Direct Investment the country attracts (heavily impacted by the reputation of Dublin).
Dublin requires unique governance. Dublin is rare as a capital city without its own city-wide government. London
was transformed by a mayoral office, and Manchester and Birmingham are undergoing similar rejuvenation. Most European cities operate a mayoral model with much greater control over funding and expenditure than the local government model in Dublin. The capital city’s needs are different to much of the rest of the country. For example, there is no single marketing function for the city to counter the growth of misinformation through social media, and to correct a dangerously misleading narrative about the city.
It is encouraging that the Taoiseach recognises the urgency for the intervention of a Taskforce to help guide
the development of the city. The good news is that much improvement is already underway. Thanks to DCC, major
public realm upgrades are completed or commencing such as Liffey Street and College Green; the Dublin City
Library is breaking ground; meanwhile-use is transforming The problems are not for lack of imagination but for poor systems and structures Capel Street (The Complex is an excellent example); and most significantly as this report goes to press news emerges that Workday, a major US Tech firm is locating its European HQ in the heart of the city (College Square in Tara Street), possibly the largest single office-letting in the history of Dublin.
I am grateful for the work of the Taskforce’s members, the generous and enthusiastic engagement of stakeholders,
especially DCC, and the direction from the Department of the Taoiseach.
It is 100 years since Sackville Street was renamed O’Connell Street, the iconography of a newly independent
State. Now we can confidently reinvent our city centre for generations to come.
