Donnacha O’Beachain

It's an embarrassment, I'm sorry, the city centre.

Anytime you have visitors coming, you can't really bring them to the city centre and have any sense that you will have something to be proud of.

I'm talking about O'Connell Street in particular because that's the logical, that's the epicentre of the city.

But, you know, the neighbouring streets aren't a lot better sometimes, depending on which direction you go.

And that's, you know, that's a lack of will.

I'm sorry, because I mean, I was in Vienna last week, for example.

It's a country the same size as Ireland.

Now, admittedly, they have an imperial history, more impressive architecture, but that doesn't speak to the obvious antisocial behaviour.

Beautiful architecture.

Yeah, but you don't see the antisocial behaviour that you see absolutely there with impunity.

There's no police presence that I can see in the city centre.

Yeah, well, as I said, I mean, I come to Dublin regularly from different points and usually it's from a better place that I'm coming to.

But no, the GPO does provide an opportunity.

I mean, like, but it would be an anchor.

I mean, it's not a, you know, something that's going to be a panacea for the whole region.

I mean, it could be, you know…

I mean, there's a big debate about whether it should retain its current use, of course, or whether it should be kind of used for something more cultural.

I think we need a cultural hub in the centre of Dublin, you know, where we'd have libraries, theatre, you know, different kind of cultural resources at which the GPO could be a part of.

But I don't think it's a standalone thing.

I did see, by the way, that they're talking about 500 million euro.