Plans for a white-water rafting facility in Dublin’s docklands were scuppered last week, with city manager Owen Keegan admitting the “negative commentary” around it had proven “impossible to reverse”. The project had become so politically toxic that a number of state bodies refused to give it even modest amounts of funding. Lest it be forgotten, the idea of putting a white-water rafting centre in a huge hole in the ground near Dublin city centre was backed by councillors on a vote of 37 to 19 as recently as December 2019. The rationale was that it would be a big tourist attraction, and be capable of staging international sports events. The estimated cost, €23 million, was known to councillors when they cast their votes.
So what changed? Basically, a narrative emerged that this was an ego trip by Mr Keegan, who is known to be a keen canoeist. Shortly after the council vote, Senator Michael McDowell said it was a “political obscenity” and a “grotesque vanity project”. Others soon joined in this chorus, wondering why €23 million was being spent on an “elitist” facility during a housing shortage, a homelessness crisis, and so on. Welcoming the decision to cancel it last week Christy Burke, a former lord mayor of Dublin, said it was an “out-of-touch and shameful project” that was “beyond belief”. It seemed, he said, “the council didn’t want to realise we are in the midst of a pandemic”. Such is the level of sophistication that attends so many political debates today, with populist and shallow arguments inevitably trumping more complex or difficult ones.
Perhaps the white-water rafting facility is not a good idea; the point is that it has been dismissed for the wrong reasons. Money for projects such as these can always be spent “better”, but every country needs some scope in its budget to invest in infrastructure and to take calculated gambles in the hope of reaping long-term returns. Other European cities, which also grapple with social and economic problems, seem to find a better balance than Dublin. Cardiff, for example, has a white-water rafting facilitiy, one that apparently attracts 85,000 visitors a year, and which was supported financially by both the city council and the Welsh assembly. Glasgow opened one in 2014, again without controversy.
It may be that the Dublin proposal has been marketed badly, and its benefits have not been properly explained. The project had the support of Dublin Fire Brigade, which said it would be a valuable resource for training. Its personnel rescue about 100 people a year from water, far more than are rescued from fires. At present they must train in the Liffey, where the appalling water quality carries a high risk of disease. The George’s Dock facility was to have an “urban flooding streetscape”, simulating what rescuing people stranded in fast-moving water would feel like. Given that climate change is going to result in heavier rainfall and more flooding, the case for training Dublin Fire Brigade staff to deal with such conditions seems convincing.
Other beneficial and non-elitist features of the development were lost in the political fog, including a new water-treatment plant to improve the bathing water quality in the area. And, of course, every four years Ireland expects to win Olympic medals in sports such as canoeing and kayaking, but somehow without making the investment in sports infrastucture that is needed to achieve such success.
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For now, the populist rejectionists have held sway, but in the medium term Dublin will remain a city short of tourist attractions and of facilities for the community, such as outdoor swimming pools, particularly in Dublin’s north inner city. More pressingly, it still has to do something with that large derelict dock, which for almost 20 years has been nothing more than a repository for litter. Opponents of the white-water rafting facility have so far not offered any proposal for a viable alternative. This includes the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which refused a grant from the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund for the scheme. It should now seek to play a more constructive role, and help to devise a solution, which may well be just a variation of the current plan.
Booster jab chaos has ruined the sense of public solidarity
Ireland has been remarkably compliant with Covid restrictions over the past 21 months. We stayed home to “flatten the curve” and help hospitals cope with an anticipated deluge of cases. We abided by one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, staying within 5km of home and venturing out only for necessities. And when vaccinations were offered, more than 93 per cent of the adult population availed of the protection via an orderly, age-based system. The vaccination programme was a slick operation, with medics, soldiers and volunteers all contributing to a national effort to keep society safe.
We were in this together. Or it felt like we were. That was until last week, when Micheál Martin suggested that somehow the people who obeyed all the rules had no sense of urgency about getting a third jab. In finger-wagging mode, the taoiseach quoted a statistic that 87,000 people had failed to turn up for their booster. Tony Holohan, the chief medical officer, chimed in, urging people not to wait until after Christmas to get that third dose. Full-page ads in newspapers and a text-messaging campaign followed, and the notion was created that complacent Irish people had suddenly developed vaccine hesitancy and were ambivalent about the threat of the Omicron variant.
This was unfair and untrue. The thousands of eligible over-50s who queued at walk-in booster clinics from before dawn last week gave the lie to the taoiseach’s contention. Hundreds of people were turned away from several walk-in centres after waiting for hours in the cold.
Naturally they took to social media and the airwaves, rightly irritated at being made scapegoats for inefficiencies in the system. It became clear that people’s vaccination status was no longer being recorded well, with many unable to cancel HSE appointments after they had been given a GP or pharmacy booster. Some people were being texted over and over again by the HSE with offers of a booster, and then recorded as no-shows.
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Meanwhile the vaccination programme for children aged 5-11, the group presently most affected by Covid infections, is still being organised. Although the delivery of the first doses is imminent, the rollout is not due until January.
The shared sense of all pulling in one direction to defeat the pandemic abated last week. The evidence is that system inefficiencies, and not personal complacency, are responsible for what has become a chaotic rollout of the booster.
Our political and medical leaders know what it feels like to be criticised unfairly. It undermines motivation and leaves well-intentioned people feeling defensive. They would be better served concentrating on sorting out glitches in the booking system and increasing the number of walk-in centres, so that as many people as possible can be fully protected before Christmas.
A break from ‘holiday’ diktats
Instead of saying “Christmas time”, the European Union recently advised its staff to say “holiday times” and not assume everyone celebrates the Christian festival. In leaked guidelines on “inclusive communications”, instead of using the names Mary and John, staff were also directed to substitute Malika and Julio.
So outraged was Pope Francis that he deliberately chose inflammatory language in reply. Once again proving Godwin’s law, which states that in any long-running argument Hitler will eventually be invoked, he likened the EU to a “Nazi dictatorship”. Condemning what he termed “ideological colonisation”, the Pope warned that such diktats would divide rather than strengthen the EU, and may even cause it to fail. Having managed to cause widespread offence in its mission to avoid causing offence, chastened Eurocrats withdrew the document, admitting, with considerable understatement, that it “needed more work”.