An update on Dublin's water

Took a trip to Wicklow yesterday for the opening of a water pipe, a €30m water pipe at Roundwood Reservoir. 

One of my heroes in the world of water is Sir John Grey. He has a statue on O'Connell Street, and this one here at Roundwood. 

He chaired Dublin Corporation's Drainage Committee in the 1860s, and knowing a reservoir would be needed in Wicklow he bought the lands in advance, and then sold them back to the city at cost to avoid speculation, a man of honour.

He also owned the Freeman's Journal, trained as a physician and was a Protestant Nationalist who sought the repeal of the Act of Union.

Fun Fact: his grandson Edmund John Chisholm Dwyer-Gray was 29th Premier of Tasmania in the 1930s.

Prior to Roundwood Reservoir's completion the Blessington Basin supplied water from 1814 to Dubliners, as well as the Jameson Distillery, but as Dublin expanded more water was needed.

Here's a picture at the Blessington Basin in Dublin's North Inner City with my @WeAreTUDublin students of environment and planning

In James Joyce’s Ulysses Leopold Bloom turns the tap to prepare a cup of cocoa for Stephan Dedalus. He makes the mistake of asking “Did it flow?” Bloom describes the entire Vartry scheme in his reply. 

Members of the Dublin Corporation enjoyed a picnic during their inspection of the Vartry waterworks in 1892. £51 16s 8d was spent, including luncheon and refreshments: a dozen bottles of Chateau Margaux, a dozen bottles of fine old Dublin whiskey and a box of cigars. 

Thankfully the local government auditor disallowed this expenditure and the Lord Chief Justice affirmed his decision. (on yesterday's trip Irish Water gave us tea and scones.)

In 1923 Alderman Staines and his colleagues from the Corporation headed down to Roundwood for an extension of the waterworks. This wonderful black and white Pathé film shows Dublin's flag being raised at the dam.

Yesterday marked the opening of a new €30m pipe and pumping station to replace the Vartry to Callowhill Link tunnel which was in danger of collapse after 150 years of use. Hopefully the old tunnel can now be rehabilitated to spare us the cost of pumping. 

There's other works in progress at Roundwood, including new slow filter beds where the water is cleaned by trickling down through fine layers of sand. 

Climate change may be reducing output as Summer droughts mean less water, and alga growth that reduce the filter capacity.

We've also got to ensure we maintain flow to the River Vartry that keeps Mount Usher gardens and farms supplied with water.

If you're interested in finding out more look out for Michael Corcoran's book 'Our Good Health' which maps out the 100 year history of Dublin's water supply. Here's a paper he gave a few years ago to Engineers Ireland.

I welcomed the launch, but said we must focus more efforts on water harvesting and conservation, as a new water supply from the Shannon will cost over a billion Euro , and use a lot of energy for pumping. Here's my few words...

Here's a link to Irish Water's information on yesterday's launch. 

And finally thanks to Ned Fleming, the engineer and waterworks superintendent who gave me a fantastic tour of the waterworks and the old valve rooms at Roundwood. Much appreciated!

Quality Housing? Let's look to Vienna

Quality housing? Dublin can learn a lot from Vienna in  providing decent well-designed housing at rents people can afford. They’ve being doing this well since 1919 and before, and they’re proud of what they do. That’s why earlier this month they invited decision-makers from around the world to find out more about the ‘Viennese Model’ at the ‘Housing for All’ Conference in Austria.

You'll hear more about housing in Vienna in 2019. Dublin City Council's Head of Housing Policy Research and Development Daithí Downey has ensured that  an exhibition that featured as a side-event at the conference will come to Dublin this Spring. It will showcase good examples from Vienna of new and refurbished public housing. Most of Vienna’s inhabitants live in subsidised dwellings, and the city itself owns 220,000 homes.

Kathrin Gaál, Chair of Vienna`s Housing Committee said at the conference: "We in Vienna view housing as a fundamental right and regard it as a public task."

Before I went to Vienna I worked out that the average rent for a two-bed house in Stoneybatter is around €1,700 a month. An equivalent apartment in Vienna would be around €330 per month, or one fifth the price. In Austria affordable rental housing isn't just for the least well-off, it is available to most residents. 

Most people in Vienna rent, and most rent from the city itself, or the equivalent of our Approved Housing Bodies, similar to the Iveagh Trust or Respond Housing. During the 'Red Vienna' period from 1918 to 1934 the city built more than 60,000 homes. Back in Dublin Herbert Simms as Dublin Corporation's Housing Architect ensured that 17,000 homes were built between 1932 to 1948, not an inconsiderable achievement a few years after Vienna had kicked things off.

The difference in Austria is that political leaders believe in public housing, and they are building well-designed mixed-income public housing in significant numbers today. I was blown away by the quality of the housing stock, the attention given to detail and the good management of what they have. There is enormous civic pride in a city that goes out of its way to use housing policy to bring society together, rather than create divisions. They're not afraid to build high density public housing, but at the same time the quality of exterior landscaping, the planting and the generous balconies were something that you don't see too often in Dublin. 

Since 1919 they've had a 1% tax on employment, split between employee and employer, and this helps fund ongoing investment in housing. They've also had a luxury tax, originally imposed on riding-horses, large private cars, servants in private households, and hotel rooms, but still in use today to provide decent housing for all.

The conference was linked in to the New Urban Agenda, which came out of the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, and is all about sustainable urban development. It will hopefully lead to more pressure on the European Union to help tackle housing challenges, and that's something that I intend doing if elected to the European Parliament for Dublin next May. I took the opportunity while in Vienna to meet up with my European Green party colleague Maria Vassilakou who is Deputy-Mayor of Vienna. The Greens share power with the Social Democratic Party in Vienna, and she is working to ensure that the bulk of housing on larger sites will be either city housing, or provided at affordable rents.

I travelled to Austria with colleagues from our City Council in Dublin, as well as some of Dublin City Council's senior housing officials. Most of the housing I saw in Vienna was well-designed, properly managed and mixed in tenure. The Austrians having been doing this well for a hundred years. Cost-rental housing provides the opportunity to do this in Dublin and is worth supporting. Hopefully Minister Eoghan Murphy TD and his senior staff will pick up on this and apply some of the lessons from Vienna to Dublin's housing crisis.

How to tackle the Housing Crisis in Dublin

I know I shouldn’t really do this, but…

Talking  up high rise distracts from the substantive issue: low-rise high density development is key to delivering the housing we need in Dublin.

Besides, our Development Plan allows for tall buildings (50m+) in four  locations, and medium-rise (50m) in ten more. Have a look at Page 318 of the Dublin City Development Plan 2016-2022

Years ago Richard Rogers in the 'Towards and Urban Renaissance' Report showed that high rise often doesn’t achieve more than low-rise. That's why I feel Minister Murphy  should focus on financing affordable housing. 

He could also seek more European Investment Bank funding for this, as well as introduce a Site Value Tax to reduce price of land as advocated by the Green Party and the Irish Planning Institute. He could increase  the Vacant Site Levy from 3% to 10% or a more meaningful figure, and lower the 400 sq. m. threshold. It is crazy that these houses in Phibsboro don’t currently qualify for the levy as the sites they occupy are too small to qualify.  

Another source of funding would be Credit Unions. Currently their surpluses go to German Bond markets and elsewhere. They should be allowed invest in Ireland Inc.

How about using 20% of Semi-State Pension funds to provide housing? CIE for instance had  €1,332,000,000 in their pension pot in 2014, (see page 77), it seems crazy some of this is not used  for housing, perhaps for the sons and daughters of CIE workers.

Cost Rental : this is what the Green Party and the National economic and Social Council want to see happen to break down ghettoisation in housing policy. Let’s do this. It’s also time the Department  of Housing gave back powers to Councils. It currently takes years for us to build, as Central Government smothers local authorities with red tape every step of the way.

It’s time the Department of Housing gave back powers back to Local Authorities.  It currently takes years for us to build, and Central Government smothers councils with red tape every step of the way.We also need to take the cowboys and cowgirls out of the rental market and increase standards in the private rental sector.

There’s thousands of underused or empty homes in Dublin and elsewhere, so let’s simplify the Living City scheme and make sure it delivers. How about making available sites for small builders or groups of those who wish to house themselves in our towns and cities: look what the Dutch are doing. And there’s lots of prefabricated home suppliers around Europe: here’s one developed by IKEA and Skanska 

Finally, let’s focus on quality, That’s what Herbert Simms as Dublin City architect did back in the 1930s, we should do the same, and architects and others are there to help.

Over to you Eoghan...