THE DUBLIN CITY Centre Taskforce approved by Cabinet today represents yet another attempt by Fine Gael to present itself as tough on crime, while totally missing the point and demonstrating a lack of understanding of inner city communities.
While the notion of revitalising the heart of our capital may sound promising on the surface, it’s essential to recognise the glaring reality: this initiative reeks of political posturing, serving the interests of day-trippers over the genuine needs of those who call Dublin City their home.
Nobody can deny that Dublin City demands a coordinated strategy for tackling the range of issues our inner-city communities face. But instead of engaging directly with local representatives on the ground in these communities, instead of speaking with the community leaders, youth workers, addiction outreach services, homelessness services, schools, sports clubs, or community organisations, we get a top down, quick fix approach from a new Taoiseach desperate to look tough on law and order.
This Taskforce is set to report back in 12 weeks. What is yet another report going to tell us that we don’t already know?
I was born, grew up and live in Dublin 8, an inner city community south of the Liffey which I am proud to be from. I am privileged to be a city councillor representing that same community.
I have witnessed first-hand the devastation that criminality, addiction and open drug dealing can have. I’ve witnessed the fear and intimidation. I’ve witnessed how entrenched, inter-generational poverty is fertile ground for gangs to recruit young people and children as young as 10 years old. But this is not the inner city’s full story. It is a place with people and communities doing amazing work, but all too often they may as well be doing this work with their hands tied behind their backs.
It is no secret that Dublin has suffered from chronic underinvestment in crucial community services. The Liberties in Dublin 8 is starved of green space and the impact is stark. According to the 2015 Liberties Greening Strategy, Liberties inhabitants had 0.68sqm of green space per person compared to the Dublin City Council average of 49sqm. Following the opening of two new parks in the Liberties, that figure went up to 1.68sqm in 2023, but there still isn’t a single full-size green space for kids to run around in and play sport.
I lived those lack of facilities as a teenager growing up 15 years ago, and those problems persist. Another example, in June 2021, a fire at Donore Avenue Community Centre forced its closure. Three years later it remains boarded up with no clear indication as to when that vital community space will reopen.
These are just two examples of the lack of community investment in my own inner city part of Dublin – there are countless others – and you don’t need a PhD in social work to understand the links between denying children and young people positive outlets and the potential for them to be dragged down more negative paths.
We don’t need a task force to tell us parks and community centres are needed, we need action now and investment now.
It is worth noting and listing out the array of structures we already have in Dublin. Dublin already has North East Inner City (NEIC) initiative, it already has the newly established Local Community Safety Partnership due to begin in July 2024 – which is a controversial, watered-down successor of our Joint Policing Committee. Not to mention Dublin City Council and all of its Strategic Policy Committees. We have the structures but they have no teeth. So instead of actually grappling with what Dublin needs, we get this latest taskforce with its stated ambition of “rejuvenating” Dublin – whatever that even means.
If Fine Gael, indeed this Government, is serious about ‘rejuvenating’ our capital, we don’t need another stunt task force. Instead of creating another layer of bureaucracy for a tokenistic quick win, local government must be empowered and given the tools and the teeth to work within existing structures to tackle inequality, to invest equally in our community infrastructure and to improve the lives of the people who call our city home.
Darragh Moriarty is a Labour Dublin City Councillor for the South West Inner City.
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