Dublin dirty and dangerous

It is a kip on both the southside and northside city areas. Pavements that are cracked, litter, vacant and derelict businesses, traffic everywhere, junkies and tracksuit wearing scrotes, no proper market squares, no pedestrianisation, filthy River Liffey and even the aggressive seagulls make it an awful state of a city. The state of the place is only excused by those that are just happy to be able to get their alcohol in the many pubs and bars and drink themselves to a point when the kip starts to seem bearable or charming.

It has no character or soul anymore, as residents have been priced out of the city centre for temporary residents and the entitled non-contributing under class. As a result, no one living in the city gives a crap and this is then reflected in the state of the place on both north and south inner cities. It is criminal that young people and working families have not been included in policy decisions to make the city more liveable. Dublin is not London and it should be possible (especially as it is badly needed) to have more people living in the city centre (which I define as being within the canals). It is tragic to see the city decline to this state and I won’t be around to improve it as I moved away due to it being totally unliveable and unappealing like so many others.

Each county council has the ability to set a different LPT rate, so I'd presume that the monies raised would remain in that county. Quite a few have increased it by the maximum allowed, whereas all of the Dublin LAs except Fingal have reduced it by the maximum allowed.

https://www.revenue.ie/en/property/local-property-tax/valuing-your-property/determining-lpt-charge.aspx

The problem is that Dublin city planning is a joke.

The city is lackig innovation and is basically stuck in 2010. This is mostly due to the financial crisis, no real financing for major and necessary projects.

There are far too few LUAS lines, the airport ist still not connected by rail, and the discussion about a Metrolink wouldn't operate before 2035, and that would be the earliest.

Instead of endless Metrolink planning and then discovering they have no real finances, they should try to build more LUAS lines. It's by far cheaper and faster.

And yes, certain streets could be pedestrianized, with maybe a LUAS line as an exception, as car traffic in these streets is often at a gridlock anyway.

If somebody wants to build a high rise, the application nearly automatically declined. Thus the Dublin docks are so ugly as they are. No consistent style like the London docklands with brown brick everywhere. Just one ulgly tree strump after the next, it even surprises me that Salesforce tower even qualifies to be a tower while it's a tree stump.

And also, there is far too few policing around. The sense of security doesn't really exist in Dublin.

I don't think Dublin is exceptionally dirty, it's by far cleaner than London, but that's also a different size city.

Some Eastern European cities which were under communist rule have by now outpaced Dublin in terms of infrastructure and public transport. Warsaw in Poland is such and example but also Krakow.

Many eastern European cities were far better than Dublin is today for public transport even under communist rule!

The status of Dublin city centre reflects the complete contempt most members of the Dail have for the city of Dublin and its people.

They're happy to milk them for taxes but invest practically nothing in the city compared to what a city of its size needs and deserves.

Pitting Luas vs. Metro is a joke, the city needs both and much more of both than is currently planned. No large city can function well when it is as dependent on the bus as Dublin is, and is as clogged with cars as Dublin is. Provide alternatives that work and people will use them.

Hopefully the directly elected mayor in Limerick will work out and will be adopted in Dublin sooner rather than later. A few rural councillors in north Fingal blocking that for the whole city was a complete joke. It's also a joke that because I live in SDCC I have no representation or say whatsoever in what happens in the centre of the city where I live and work. It needs one directly elected mayor for the whole city with real powers and a real budget. And yes property tax is far below what it should reasonably be, FF's disastrous abolition of domestic rates in 1977 has blighted urban areas all over Ireland ever since but hurt Dublin in particular.

Agree with all this, but again on the property tax, if Dublin PT increases by 15% i want to see the full 15% invested into additional Dublin services, not redistributed down the country to the counties that cant fund their own services.

Let central govt pick up that tab.

I don't think the property tax or an increase is a good choice. Housing is as expensive as it is and it'll make a problem even worse.

There was nothing nice under communism. If it was down to that, rather have no public transport at all than that implemented because of communism. It was an inhumane regime which also murdered at will.

You were better off poor and without a job in Ireland than experience communism in one of the satellites.

But that's not so much the point.

Looking at from the the fall of communism in the 1990is until today some cities in Eastern Europe have done more than well and outpaced Dublin.

Look at Warsaw, and their infrastructure, their high rise buildings.

Look at Bratislava, high rise buildings and more to be built.

All impossible in Dublin, - and the economy totally depending on external factors, US investment, other foreigners etc..

What I am saying is some former Eastern European cities are by far more attrative by now and even better choice in housing, even safer, and maybe even cleaner.

The chronic underfinancing of the police in Ireland is a problem also that endless "we don't want NATO membership because of the evil Brits" is also a lame excuse. The question of secuity is a big one, and Ireland isn't doing too well in these areas, no matter if it's policing or military.

Many Eastern European now EU countries are simply faring better by now. ( not Hungary )

Dublin as well as Ireland is sadly often stuck in 2010 in many ways.

Naa, I think it's 2010 or 2009.

Celtic tiger was totally mismanaged at the end of things, then everything crashed.

The country was struggling with a lot of things in the aftermath. Too much fire fighting, and not much public funds available for long term projetcts.

Lot's of issues of today's Ireland are rooted in that problem.

Two LUAS lines and the port tunnel and a chronically underfunded police and armed forces are just too little in long term investment.

Expecting that one is to pay 1500 Euros for a room in a shared property certainly won't ever build you a strong and good society in Dublin. That one is certain and creating all sorts of other social problems and only fuels short term thinking.

Werent the council supoosed to be bringing in seagull proof waste bags? Bin collections should be part of public services again, so everyone pays for it via Property Tax. I think that would heavily reduce fly tipping. Fly tipping should also be heavily fined.

Do you mean the council or the residents?

The Wheelie bins are there and available and you can segregate recyclables and so on.

The problem is you have to pay for those wheelie bins to be emptied by private companies. Those that dont pay come up with alternative ways to dump their rubbish.

Ahh yes, you get that in the city centre where the businesses take our their rubbish and I agree it would be much better if there were dedicated skips that these bags could be collected from. Multiple daily collections if needed.

Its things like that that the council should manage, but as its managed by private collections i guess the council are not involved.

Thats the issue. Council need to own it and clean it.

Leaving bags out early evening for same-day collection would have been mostly OK pre-Covid, but the long lockdown would have imprinted much more aggressive and desperate behaviour.

What is wrong with continental style BIG communal bins in areas where wheelie bins cannot fit? (or indeed anywhere).

Oh I suppose it's because those who don't pay bin charges will use them and fill them up or something.

That's another reason why including bin charges with the Property Tax is needed badly, similar to council tax and community charges in European countries. Why not here? Everyone is covered with the PT, landlords and owners, should be no reason not to install big communal bins everywhere.

while blame is being attributed:

• DPER/DFIN have resisted any decentralisation of decision making/budgets since the foundation of the State.
• The Dept. Of Environment/local Government is a shadow of its former sense. It has no feel for local government anymore.
• The County Manager system (which served the State reasonably well) has been eroded over the decade to the extent that things have gone backwards.
• Poor people in leadership positions in the local authority.
• Councillors with no vision and lots of hot air. Not charging the full property tax when the streets are as bad as they are was criminal.
• Lack of policing - how difficult is it?

If waste collection was not privatized, you could have rubbish bins on your street that you put your rubbish in.

Thats how it is in cities all over the world.

Plenty of tidy town initiatives in Dublin. I have often seen groups of volunteers collecting litter. Just not in the city centre.

I was going to post about rates. There was a comment earlier in this thread talking about raising the property tax to pay for street cleaning. There are some businesses paying 2-3000 a month in commercial rates. The rates for one business would pay for a dedicated cleaner for their street. If you have 7 other businesses, that could pay for a small army of cleaners for that street, so again you have to ask, where is that money going?

You'll be glad to hear that the Government abolished the transfer of LPT monies to underfunded local authorities in 2023, so 100% of locally raised LPT is now spent locally. Only problem is that the Government now expects some of the extra LPT money to replace central funding, so not sure if we're any better off.

"the LPT allocation mechanism for 2023 is changed to allow for 100% of the estimated yield to be retained locally within the local authority area where it is collected." see https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2023-05-17/147/

There's literally no space unfortunately. Right outside the door is the footpath and beyond that is on street parking with my car.

So they'd either be obstructing the path / blocking my windows or preventing me from parking my car.

We really need some sort of on street communal bins like those Amsterdam ones I have the video of above. Would be fantastic.

Do we pay "huge" property tax and commercial rates ?

Are we not really cheap by the standards of all the European countries that have better stuff than us.

You just know that if that was proposed it'd get shot down for "not being in keeping with Dublin's architectural heritage". Maybe a certain Irish Times contributor would get up in arms about it disrupting the natural habitat of Dublin's rats.