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T he facts are stark: In their pre-budget submiss
ion, Give Us the Night indicated that there’s been an 84% decrease in nightclubs since 2000, no new build venues in long over a decade, and some counties without any type of specialist night-time dance venue. One thing we wanted to bring to the discussion was an external perspective, and not necessarily from the likes of Berlin which, in some respects, is misaligned in terms of scale and where we are currently at. Bristol is a little over an hour away by plane and has a population just shy of 500,000. And yet, they have a vibrant club and cultural scene open until 6am with numerous progressive initiatives as outlined by Carly Heath, their night-time economy adviser who joined our discussion. Below is an edited transcript of a wideranging hour long discussion on what is being done and needs to be done. We heard from an activist, politician, promoter and outsider. The full conversation can be heard at Nialler9.com SS: “What we (Give Us The Night) are really trying to do is sow some seeds in terms of cultural infrastructure. We don’t believe that arts centres are being used to their full capability so one of the things we have asked for is that more of these spaces, more publicly owned buildings would be used for the likes of what you are putting on here. We need to see more examples of that, but we also need to see venues that can sustain themselves financially. I think it’s very important to give venues the tools. At the moment the amount of money you have to pay to keep the wolf from the door is really tough. I think our pre-budget submission is quite realistic and that’s the feedback we got from most parties as well (Note: The Budget saw the halving of excise fees for venue owners from €110 to €55 but applicants will still have to pay a total of €210 for an SEO when the court fee is taken into account.) I want to promote noise in the city, there should be more noise in the city, to be honest. But there’s a lot of people who don’t like noise, especially if they live next to it, but we can understand that. We need to be able to appease those groups and come up with a solution. We need to re-invest into spaces that have been used for night-life, invest in spaces that have the potential for night-life and also put in other tools such as sound proofing when it comes to noise.” MMD: “Claire, you’re coming from the inside as a politician and also being in government. You see the machinations up close, there is an understanding that policy and legislative change is a complex beast, and it has been a year since the delivery of the Task Force report on the Night-Time economy. Where do you come from right now concerning the frustrations and possibilities?” CB: “I represent the city as Green Party councillor for the last eight years and at a local level my job is to try and steer the policy in the right direction and we are also fortunate, in some sense, to be in government. My colleague Catherine Martin is Minister for Culture, so she has direct responsibility for this. We also have the transport brief which is also relevant to a vibrant night-time economy. But I’ve been a citizen of the city for much longer, long enough to remember when we had a really vibrant club culture and good night-time economy and a range of clubs that are no longer here - POD, Crawdaddy, Kitchen…they were all gig venues and late night venues. Changes are as a result of licensing changes that have taken place over the last ten years, but also a direct result of bad planning decisions at a local level with Dublin City Council, but also with An Bord Pleanála that has aided, abetted and actively facilitated the erosion of our club culture. Whereas we used to have a diverse offering - I always think of Strictly Fish on Kildare Street which had a house room, a drum and bass one and even a reggae one - that to me was Dublin in the late ‘90s and early noughties and that’s just gone now. Even from a venue perspective where those things used to happen in theatres and hotels and restaurants, that’s all stopped now because it has become unviable for those places. “We have a big job on our hands. Things are changing but at a snails’ pace. For me 25 The panel Sunil Sharpe - Give Us The Night Renn Miano - Origins Eile Councillor Claire Byrne - Green Party Carly Heath - Night Time Economy Advisor, Bristol Michael McDermott - Totally Dublin personally, I have been campaigning for a Night Mayor for many years and had a motion agreed in 2019 and, to be fair, I was inspired by meeting Robbie (Kitt) and Sunil in 2018 when they outlined the situation from their perspective as promoters and musicians and DJs. Four years on, we are getting close and there are a number of reasons. I pushed really hard to bring Sunil into the decision making process. I don’t know if you are very grateful for that because you now share the frustrations I have on a daily basis but having that voice there that decision makers can hear directly is really critical. “We made sure there were commitments in the culture sector in the programme for government to look at the night-time economy. We needed to do this before the pandemic but now it is absolutely critical, the city is on life support after six o’clock at the moment. The Night-Time Economy Task Force came up with 36 recommendations which we are in the process of implementing at the moment. We’ve recently seen funding for pilot projects and are about to announce pilot cities and towns where we will finally appoint night-time advisors and committees to really actively look at the issues that need to be addressed.” “We have a big job on our hands. Things are changing but at a snails’ pace.”