Why is Dublin such a shιtty city?

In Dublin city centre to meet a friend for late lunch yesterday and as I was waiting for the bus on Aston Quay to take me home, I saw three drug deals going down at the bus stop. Very blatant, open and no attempt to keep it discreet.

Dublin has serious social problems along with most other capital cities - poverty, inequality, drug abuse, crime, casual violence, inter-generational welfare dependency, anti-social behaviour etc. Unlike many other capital cities in Europe, however, the results of these social problems are very visible for all to see in Dublin city centre.

Since the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns, the lack of regular visitors to the city centre to shop etc has made these problems even more apparent.

In the week before Christmas, looking to post off a few final Xmas cards at a post office at about 2pm close to my place of work in the inner city, there was a big queue for welfare payments and no-one else apart from me seeming to be using the post office for actual....post. Two of the women queuing there were in their pyjamas.

I teach urban geography at university level and have a number of academic publications in this area so I think I know a little about the social geography of cities.

Dublin has always had deep seated social issues that are historical in origin - a century ago, the poverty and tenement slum conditions in the North and parts of the South inner city were so bad the city had a reputation along with Naples for having the worst slums in Europe. The programme of social housing provision between 1925 and 1990 eliminated these slums and housing and health conditions improved vastly for those rehoused, but the social problems and deep inequality remained and were not properly tackled.

Dublin essentially has historically always been a relatively poor city marked by very high levels of poverty. It is only in the past 30 or so years that the city has become an economic powerhouse on a global level thanks to the Celtic Tiger era. The city is still in many ways playing catch up with other capital cities that have been wealthy for centuries - it still lacks a Metro system which is a huge deficiency in terms of public transport.

As a child back in the 1980s I well remember rampant begging and anti-social behavior in the city centre. O’Connell Street and its vicinity back then was well on its way in its downward spiral. There may well be a strong bang of weed walking around the inner city these days - but back then every second man seemed to reek of drink.

If anything, after the drastic cutbacks to the social housing programme in the late 1980s and the gradual replacement of direct provision of social housing by the local authorities towards propping up a whole cohort of low-income households in a mercilessly squeezed private rented sector has been a recipe for disaster for Dublin - and a very wasteful and inefficient use of public exchequer revenue. This is an issue I and others have researched and pointed out in our work over the past 20 or so years - but it has largely fallen on deaf ears by the policy makers.

Combine the housing shortage with a homelessness crisis - along with a concentration of drug and alcohol “treatment” facilities in Dublin’s inner city, the magnetic pull of the capital to those with drug and life problems from elsewhere - and you have a recipe for the very visible problems we see in the city today.

The current FF/FG government simply don’t really care about the situation - theirs is a failed neo-liberal/Thatcherite economic ideology harking back to the callous “laissez faire” mindset in the 19th Century where the poor will stay poor - albeit these days supported cradle to grave by a generous welfare system - the middle class are gradually squeezed out of existence (lack of affordable long-term housing options being key here) - and the idea of renting in perpetuity to a REIT/vulture fund is seen as a “necessary evil” by those in power.

Dublin City Council is currently riddled with gross ineptitude and corruption - and City Manager Owen Keegan has shown us all his condescending, patronizing and frankly callous attitude to the severe housing shortage.

These problems will continue and worsen until a new government begins to actually heed the advice and recommendations of researchers and agencies working in the field to firefight these issues. Currently the prevailing attitude from on high is to willfully ignore the situation, make half-hearted gestures to be seen to do something, but in reality doing very little as the “Let Them Eat Cake” and “I’m All Right Jack” mentality prevails.

The governance of Dublin is chaotic and disjointed with four local authorities for the built-up city, another three beyond and an unelected Mayor with no real powers and an unelected and unaccountable City Manager. It is just not good enough and needs radical reform in order for Dublin to be managed and run porperly.