Dublin City Council must be ‘central driving force’ for rejuvenation of O’Connell Street

Taoiseach Micheál Martin will consider the establishment of a taskforce for the rejuvenation of O’Connell Street in Dublin but he warned that it was “not a panacea”.

Responding to Social Democrats joint leader Róisín Shortall, Mr Martin said that Dublin City Council must be at the heart of any rejuvenation of the capital’s main street. It had to be the “central driving force”.

Ms Shortall called for the Taoiseach to head a multi-agency taskforce following RTÉ's Prime Time on Tuesday night about the violence, drugs use, and dereliction on O’Connell Street.

She said it has “the look of an area where those in authority have simply given up”.

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“If you walk along the street, almost everything on one side, from the spire to the ambassador is derelict and deserted.”

Raising the issue at Leaders’ Questions she said the area around the Abbey Theatre “is similarly derelict, desolate and filthy. This is our National Theatre. The area around it should be one of the jewels in the crown of the cultural quarter of the North City.”

[ O’Connell Street is in a miserable state ]

She said that it would not be tolerated in any other European capital city as she criticised the downgrading of a proposed Garda station on the street to a Garda liaison office.

Mr Martin said he was struck on viewing Prime Time “by the extraordinary violence, wanton violence against people on our streets late on the evening. There is no question that the free exchange of drugs is very obvious”.

But he said “the idea of the Taoiseach’s office being the panacea for everything in the country is not a runner. We need something more structured and systemic than just a taskforce.”

Mr Martin also said he had been hearing calls for the rejuvenation of O’Connell Street for the past 25 years. TDs and Senators had formed committees with local committees. A solution emerged “but not everybody’s happy with that”.

“They want to go back to the drawing board and start again but with the planning laws that would mean another decade with no development.

“Politicians have to sometimes and make decisions about the future of their city and their country and not forever hide behind the campaign.”

But reiterating her call for Mr Martin to lead a multi-agency taskforce under his department she said it was “desperately needed” to avoid further decline because O’Connell street “is actually at a tipping point”.

And she hit out at politicians that represented the area down the years including a former taoiseach “a certain Fianna Fáil representative was there for 35 years”. She said the Minister for Finance has represented the area for several years “and yet the street is a disgrace”.

But Mr Martin rounded on her and said her remarks “suggest you’re reducing this to just basic partisan politics, which I think is unworthy of the issue” as if it was up to the current Minister for Finance “to sort out all these issues and its much more complex than that”.

[ Plans for development of O’Connell Street and Moore Street get green light ]

He said that “Dublin City Council is there to run this city. We have councils and we have each way bets all the time in this House, saying that we’ve taken too much power from local authorities.

“We need something more structured and systemic than just a taskforce,” and he said that other councils and cities were coming forward with their own development plans.