From top: Heuston Station Luas stop yesterday; Gary Gannon
Dubliners need a figurehead who has the democratic legitimacy to engage with business, academia, unions or if necessary our own government.
Gary Gannon writes:
There exists a democratic deficit in the City of Dublin.
The Chief Executive of Dublin City Council is by far the most powerful official in our nation’s capital with no electoral mandate from the people of Dublin yet makes decisions which impact daily upon the lives of Dubliners.
We had no say when our waste management services were privatised.
There is nobody that can be held to account for the dereliction that blights the aesthetic quality of our City Centre.
A single accident on the M50 motorway regularly brings our entire city to a standstill.
The time has long since arrived for Dublin to have an identifiable and accountable structure of leadership.
The people of Dublin should be afforded the chance to vote for a directly elected Mayor with appropriate powers and a budget to enact upon an agreed vision for our capital city.
As Dubliners we are often accused of being a little overly confident by those who reside outside of The Pale. With the expectation of a 26th All Ireland Championship arriving this weekend, it may be considered impolite to further highlight the significance of the capital as the economic heart of the country but the facts speak for themselves.
Economic activity in the Dublin region accounts for 47% of our entire GDP. As a comparison, London accounts for only 20% of the UK’s. According to the CSO figures of 2011, 49% of all the employees in the State are located in Dublin where they contribute to 55% of Ireland’s entire income tax.
There are currently four ministers at cabinet level with responsibility to some degree concerned with the affairs of rural Ireland but not one with a sole focus on Dublin despite the obvious importance of the City to the country as a whole.
This is an oversight which leaves Dublin vulnerable to being overtaken by European Cities who we are competing with on a multitude of levels.
Recent years have provided several obvious examples of where an absence of an identifiable person with a responsibility for the Dublin region has been to the reputational and economic detriment of the city.
The Dublin Web Summit for example brought 30,000 people into the RDS in addition to a wealth of global tech innovators each year. Much public scorn has been directed at the organisers following their decision to relocate the Web Summit to Lisbon but their conditions upon which they would stay were not entirely unreasonable.
Emails published by the Web Summit between they and the office of the Taoiseach showed that the four main issues that the organisers were concerned with were traffic management; public transport; the costs of hotels and the poor standard of wifi in the RDS.
It should never be the role of a Taoiseach to organise wifi or present a traffic management plan to a single event but the fact that Dublin City Council and its elected representatives were impotent on this issue was unjustifiable.
In those same emails one of the organisers of the Web Summit expressed his astonishment that he had been unable to attain a meeting with the chief executive of Dublin City Council but had regularly held meetings with the prime ministers of other countries.
Dublin as a major European city needs a figurehead who has the democratic legitimacy to engage with business, academia, or if necessary our own government.
It is estimated that just under 500,000 people travel within Dublin City Centre every day.
These include 235,000 work related trips, 45,000 education related trips and 120,000 trips that comprise of domestic visitors, tourists and shoppers. At an absolute minimum these people need to feel safe in our capital city but yet a total of 314 Gardai were removed from the Dublin North & South Central Policing Divisions since 2009.
Polls regularly show that people do not feel safe walking in Dublin City Centre and yet the removal of so many Gardai from the Central Divisions occurred without much opposition or fanfare.
Whether it was prescribed in legislation or not, a person elected by the people of Dublin to serve its need would be expected to be involved in these decisions or to at a minimum offer a counter political narrative.
Just yesterday it was announced that Dublin Bus workers will engage in a further 13 more days of strike action throughout the month of July following the refusal of the company to engage with workers.
This is an issue which has impacted on almost 400,000 passengers in Dublin and yet the political response to the industrial conflict has been largely mute with the exception of a couple of useless platitudes calling on both sides to engage.
A directly elected Mayor for the City could surely bring some much needed political leadership to this issue.
It would be inconceivable that Sadiq Khan in London or Bill De Blasio in New York would not seek to intervene or act as intermediaries if such a dispute was to occur in their respective cities.
A directly elected Mayor for the City of Dublin could never get away with the type of indifference that is regularly shown from cabinet to issues that face our capital.
There is a much broader discussion to be had on the extent of the powers that would be afforded to such a position but at a minimum a directly elected Mayor would have authority over the areas of transport; planning; waste management and water services in Dublin.
I would also add policing to that list on the understanding that policing in our major cities presents different challenges to policing in towns or rural areas but I imagine that this suggestion would be a little audacious in our current political culture.
The branding of Dublin that is projected on to the world stage is one that is intrinsically associated with its people but yet this is not reflected in our political structures.
A directly elected Mayor is in many ways the embodiment of that cities people and we should not neglect or be fearful of the public relations aspect of the role.
European Cities are increasingly in conflict with each other for potential commercial investments or greater access to tourist markets and Dublin is desperately missing a person that can be the public face of those campaigns.
Dubliners care about their City and deserve to have a say in who is in charge.
In 2013 over 18,000 submissions were made to Dublin City Council concerning the naming the bridge that became The Rosie Hackett.
One can only imagine the level of civic engagement that would occur if they were presented with the opportunity to choose a Mayor that could lead our city in to the future.
Gary Gannon is a Social Democrats Councillor on Dublin City Counicil for Dublin’s North Inner City. His column appears here every Friday usually before lunch but a little later today owing to an editorial mix up. Follow Gary on Twitter: @1garygannon
Previously: Derek Mooney on the Dublin Mayor Nightmare
We already have 4 separate councils overseeing the county of Dublin… and you want to add another layer on top of this?
Yes …all vying for the position of Dick Whit.
Four councils overseeing 1.3 million people. Thirty percent of the population.
Four councils for thirty percent of the population.
Twenty-seven councils for the other seventy percent.
You’ve just made a pretty convincing argument for abolishing the antiquated county system we’re inexplicably still using and rationalising the governance in the rest of the country. Rural people are over governed, Dubliners are under-governed.
Dublin is a global city, our only actual city in the global meaning of the word, our capital and the heart of our economy is inexplicably treated and managed under the same system as applies in Leitrim.
…so replace the 4 current ones (Fingal, Dublin City, South Dublin and Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown) with one council? that is headed by a Lord Mayor?
Or just strip “transport; planning; waste management and water services” from them and add a 5th Lord Mayors office.
And what about the commuter towns in surrounding counties? (Bray, Naas, Maynooth?, etc) should they come under the Mayor?
1. London has 30 odd borough councils, each with their own mayor. But English local government is actual local government, unlike in Ireland they actually have power. They run schools, bins, parks, playgrounds, voting registers.
2. The Mayor and Assembly of London do city-wide strategy, look after the big ticket stuff, transport, policing, economic development, fire services, planning appeals like Bord Pleanala.
These are actually pretty distinct functions, currently mostly carried out by central government in Ireland. Which is why you have the farce of the national parliament debating fupping bin charges. What are we paying local authority people for?
Read down the page, I’ve already said the county system is fine for the GAA and Tidy Towns, but the fact that we’re using Norman shires for 21st century governance is daft, sentimental rubbish.
“Four councils for thirty percent of the population.”
It’s a quarter of the population. You still readin’ dose 80s geography bukes?
County Dublin; 1,345,402
Republic of Ireland; 4,595,000
29.3%
That’s the county, not Greater Dublin, which is a term that has no basis in law or governance. I think it should, but that’s Ireland.
Translation: We want a democratically elected mayor as long as he/she is the right kind of mayor.
A gay Muslim refugee west brit cultural marxist SJW, please.
Then we get to put your sort in the camps. :o)
The sensitivity camps. :oD
o_O
*Books flights / manscapes*
Congratulations, you’ve just described democracy. Everyone votes for who they think is the right kind of politician (or maybe just the least worse one).
Exactly. One of Gary’s types.
What about Stephen Donnelly for Mayor?
He’s from Wicklow though.
This is my point on keeping the arbitrary, not fit for purpose, archaic county system.
Middlesex was abolished to create Greater London out of it and bites from other, now ‘ceremonial’ English counties.
County Dublin needs to be disregarded for the Viking Kingdom it no longer is, the people who work and school in Dublin, from places like Bray and Greystones and Celbridge and Leixlip belong under Dublin governance, not councils in counties they only sleep in.
+1
Bray & Greystones being governed from Wicklow town since abolition of the town councils in 2014 makes zero sense. Both are effectively suburbs that are closer to Dublin city geographically, culturally and aesthetically (a simple look at the older buildings confirms this) than the rest of the Wicklow which naturally has a more rural focus. About 20% of Bray is actually in Co. Dublin, meaning an even less joined up approach to planning, etc.
Of course Wicklow County Council would fight this tooth and nail due to the business rates than come in from the two largest urban areas in the county. The same probably is true for Leixlip, Maynooth, Celbridge, etc. Skerries, Balriggan, etc. are further from the city again yet are governed by suburban Fingal council. None of this was challenged in a recent constituency boundary review
Can’t. The GAA parochial mindset would never allow it.
Them from the village five miles down the road are dirty savages, after all.
I wonder what a person who was the embodiment of the electorate of Dublin be like?
A total fupping head-the-ball.
…Soc Dems must fancy their chances with this one…just what we need…another opportunity for brown envelopes and entitlement…in fairness, the incumbent wouldn’t last an all-Ireland final or a Garth Brooks concert…
That sounds great Gary, but I have to ask, Gary have you met our Irish Politicians ?
The best argument against the expansion of local government in Ireland is a five minute conversation with the average local politician.
“Isn’t “leadership” brilliant? What leadership is, is, when you have intractable political disputes, it’s always because of an absence of leadership. But if you have “leadership” then that’s the cure for everything. Like, whenever people disagree or find their interests in conflict, all you need is a spot of “leadership” and suddenly everybody agrees with you and stops acting the ****. Magic! And the best kind of leadership is directly-elected leadership, which isn’t fascist at all! Some people say that inclusive political process necessarily takes time, and has to allow for expressions of dissent and uncomfortable emotions as part of the sometimes painful process of collective maturing that societies must continuously undergo if all their members are to enjoy the fullest extent of personal flourishing. But that’s just ‘cos they never been leadered too good. And that’s bad.”
(from “Negative dialectics” by Theodore Adorno.)
but ..but… the SDs don’t do leadership:)
How about three co-Mayors without portfolio?
BOOM!
Don’t always agree with SDs, but dead right on this issue.
Motorways going to Ballygobackwards, and Dublin can’t get a much-needed Metro North? Elected mayor with fiscal powers all the way.
We spent the first 80-odd years with each council responsible for their own roads. It’s only in the recent past that the NRA got overall responsibility for the national roads… and we have a half-decent system… and now you want to remove the NRA for national roads in Dublin?
Perhaps the Dublin Mayor should also get authority for all roads that lead to Dublin too?
Think he means a leader for Dublin, with the mandate of it’s people would have a powerful case for making sure Dublin gets it’s fair share of the money it generates for the country.
While at present it’s doled out by ministers converting boreens in their constituencies into 6 lane motorways with no economic or logistic rationale.
Our government at the moment hangs on a rural TD swindling funds out of the rest of us for their local hospital FFS.
spot on, ahjayzis
Oh if we could only argue over who to elect every 5 years, all our problems would be solved.
Do you realise that the same bunch of incompetents are that people who will contest for the top job?
Boot that despicable Owen Keegan from his lofty, despotic council position first.
Put forward someone for Dublin Mayor of forward thinking, logical & successful business acumen-must have a great love for our city & a Guilianni interest in ridding Dublin of scum…thieving & ASBO types.
It works in Singapore.
A strong confident figurehead such as a Boris Johnston type…bringing some sort of civic importance& pride to that house on Dawson Street.
Absolute nobodies with ridiculous gold chain necklaces have held office there for far too long.
“Emails published by the Web Summit between they and the office of the Taoiseach showed that the four main issues that the organisers were concerned with were traffic management; public transport; the costs of hotels and the poor standard of wifi in the RDS.”
Seriously, this person is using whinges from the money-grubbing geebags behind Web Summit as justification for his alleged “democratic deficit” and why one of his female chums (for I assume that is a sine qua non of the generation snowflake meme) should get the job of mayor?
Valid point. If a big international event were staged in Washington DC, do you see the organisers emailling the White House about traffic management; public transport; the costs of hotels and the poor standard of wifi in the convention centre?
We’re ridiculously centralised.
Remember people trying to drag Enda into GarthGate
Embarrassing.
“do you see the organisers emailling the White House about traffic management;”
Actually, yes I do see that.. and I also see the reply.. ‘thank you for your email, but kindly p*ss off.
In those same emails one of the organisers of the Web Summit expressed his astonishment that he had been unable to attain a meeting with the chief executive of Dublin City Council but had regularly held meetings with the prime ministers of other countries.
According to the organisers they should be able to meet Obama himself to discuss these things..lol The price of a hotel was a concern to them, and they charging 25 euro for nachos.. go way our dat.
Jaysus, Ahjazis…you’re bang on point on this.
The concentration of economic activity within a small area needs curtailment
as it robbing and depleting the rest of the country of resources, then there is
the cost of additional infrastructure, water supply from the shannon, 400 kV
power line from the west, additional outer ring road to take congestion off the M50 and it goes on….its time to halt it…..and you don’t need a Mayor to suss it out
as they way its going Dublin will choke its self to death with traffic.
Shurrup you mad culchie..