REVIEW OF THE YEAR: DECEMBER 2023

No contactless payment on Dublin Bus until 2025

It was announced that contactless payment will not be in place on Dublin Bus until 2025.
Contactless payment was first announced for Dublin Bus in 2018, but has been beset by delays.
Dublin Bus bosses said that upgrading the entire fleet will take time, and delays in the tender process has led to the scheme slipping into 2025.

League of Ireland attendances up 20%

Statistics from the FAI showed that attendances at League of Ireland games were up 20% on 2022.
The bumper crowds at League of Ireland games can be seen at clubs like Shamrock Rovers, Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic, with games regularly selling out for the Dublin sides.
Domestic Irish football marked a milestone in 2023, with the FAI Cup final between Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic breaking a record for the highest attendance at a domestic Irish football match in history.
43,881 people took in the action at the Aviva as Pats beat Bohs 3-1.
Attendances at Irish women’s league matches also saw a strong rise in 2023, no doubt linked to the heroics of the Irish women’s national team on the international circuit.

Disability advocates protest “insulting” disability reforms

Disability advocates protested outside the Dáil in December over Government’s proposed Green Paper reforms.
The proposed changes include bringing in a tiered system, which has drawn sharp criticism, and led to Independent Senator Tom Clonan dubbing the plan as “something out of Dickens.”
A coalition of protesters, consisting of disability advocacy groups across the country such as Disabled Women Ireland, Neruo Pride Ireland and Access For All Ireland, made their voices heard.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns called the proposed reforms “insulting” and a carbon copy of austerity measures brought in by the UK government following the 2008 economic crash.
Chairperson of Disability Power Ireland Maryam Madani said “we will be categorised into tiers based solely on the perception of our capacity to work from independent medical assessors.”

Council passes motion to protect libraries from far-right protesters

Dublin City Council passed a motion that looks to protect library workers from harassment from members of the far-right.
The motion, proposed by Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon, said the motion “was a bit of a two fingers to the far-right.”
Far-right protesters in Cork caused the closure of libraries over the summer after they claimed that libraries were displaying pornographic material in books aimed at LGBTQ+ people.
“You can see why the far-right went after libraries; they are everything they are not. They are quiet places, thoughtful, communal, inclusive, for everyone, and the far-right is hyper-individualistic, super-aggressive, thoughtless, loud, you can see why they go after it,” Pidgeon said.
The motion was passed by Dublin City Council with members from all parties, ranging from Fine Gael to independent left-wing Councillors voting for it.

Referendums on family and care dated for March 8th

Ireland will be going to the polls on March 8th to vote on changing text in the Constitution surrounding language about the family and duties of the mother.
The referendums were announced by Government in December, with An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar saying “our constitution will continue its history protecting both the family and the institution of marriage.”
“Repurposing the wording, however, acknowledges the families may also be founded on lasting relationships other than marriage.”
The wording of the role of the woman in the home is regarded as outdated by activists, and Green Party Minister Roderic O’Gorman said “after decades of deliberation, we are finally offering the people the opportunity to remove the archaic and sexist reference to women in the home, which has contributed nothing to the good of women’s lives in this country other than to limit their choices.”

Places secured for St. Michael’s graduates after campaign

Graduates of St. Michael’s in Baldoyle managed to secure day services after intervention from Minister Anne Rabbitte.
The graduates of St. Michael’s have a range of intellectual disabilities, and were told upon graduation in June that there would be no places for them in day services when the new school year started in September.
It took until November for the issue to be resolved, but following tireless campaigning by disability advocates the issue gathered enough momentum to capture the attention of Government ministers who subsequently sorted the issue.
“My main question is who kept this a secret, and why?” parent Sharon Flood asked, while campaigner Ali Field said that “this issue should never happen again, and we need to make sure that it never does.”

Gannon calls for metropolitan style of policing for Dublin

Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon has called for Dublin to introduce a metropolitan style of policing, similar to what is seen in other major European cities.
Speaking in the aftermath of the Dublin riots, the Dublin Central TD said that the current style of policing in Ireland is outdated, and Ireland should employ a similar style of policing like what it seen in other major European cities.
A noted critic of the effectiveness of the garda station on O’Connell Street, Gannon said “you can’t police a city on overtime.”
“We need a style of policing that actually has guards who are embedded in the city centre area, who understand that the culture of policing in that sort of central environment is different to residential policing – we haven’t really had that.”