Good afternoon and welcome to our AGM luncheon and a particular warm welcome to our guest of honour Minister for Transport, Mr. Martin Cullen T.D.
 
This is my third and final speech as Chairman of the DCBA and I wish to take the opportunity to thank the members for their support during my chairmanship and in particular the officer board:  P.J. Timmins, Pat Hughes, Conor Keoghan,  David Brennan, Dan Boyd, Andrew Diggins, Basil Good, David Baker and Mr. Jim Whelan.
 
I would like to pay a special thanks to Jim Whelan who has chaired the North Earl Street Committee and the Transport Committee.   Jim is the longest serving member going back some 30 years and he has just retired. I would like to mark the occasion by making this presentation to Jim to show him our grateful thanks.

By and large Dublin City Centre has performed well in the last twelve months. Footfall counts are up on last year, accessibility for shoppers continues to improve with record numbers travelling on Dublin Bus, an exceptional performance from Luas and the timely completion of the DART upgrade. Our car park members have advised that last Christmas was their best performance in six years.

The successful performance of the city centre is as a result of a number of contributory factors one of which we believe was our three-year marketing campaign, which concluded last year. It was such a success that all the participating members and Dublin City Council have committed to a further three-year programme. One of our proudest achievements in the campaign was the development of a new logo and identity for the city centre, which you can see prominently around the city in shops, through our advertising material, on our new cotton shopping bags etc. We are particularly pleased that the logo we designed for the city is reflected through our consumer research, which shows that the spire is now considered to be the iconic image of Dublin City. The research also shows that Dubliners now recognise that the daytime economy is safe. This is in contrast to the nighttime economy, which is perceived not to be safe. We thank our members and our partners Dublin City Council for their support on this programme of activity and look forward to another effective three-year campaign.

We also welcome the announcement by Dublin City Council of the appointment of Anne Graham, as Events Manager and we look forward to working closely with Anne in the coming years. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate her personally for the great family evening's entertainment at the switching on of the Christmas lights in December - it was a great success! We believe that properly run family events can be critical in developing the economy of the city centre and we look forward to discussing these issues in 2006 with the City Council.

Our members performed well last year despite a 20% increase in the retail offering in the Greater Dublin Area. During the year Dundrum Shopping Centre opened too much fan-fair and over hype. Our footfall figures indicate, as does other anecdotal evidence from our members, that it has had little impact on city centre trade.

We continue to make progress with the establishment of BIDs and I am happy to report that legislation is due out of the AG's office in the coming weeks. Our recent BIDs conference was attended by over 110 delegates - representatives from Chambers of Commerce, Local Authorities, Government Departments, Garda Síochána and other organisations of interest from around the country.  For the first time I believe there is a real appreciation among the membership and the civil service of the positive difference and contribution that BIDs will make once they are finally established in this country.

As I said previously accessibility into the city centre has improved for shoppers, however, there are four key transport infrastructural projects that require our continued and close attention:

1. Opening of the Port Tunnel and ensuring that a managed delivery policy is adopted, which will see HGVs finally removed from our streets.
2. Joining the Luas lines without damaging the bus service or the economy of the city centre.
3. Deciding the best route and stops of the proposed Metro
4. Removing blockages to the QBCs which are making them less effective - design faults on the routes are undermining travel time for Dublin Bus

We welcome the M50 work and look forward to its completion when all HGVs will be required to use it and not abuse the city centre as a rat run. There is a need for a road in the East section of the city to complete a circle road around the city and we believe suburban shopping centres on the M50 have an obligation to manage their own car parking more effectively, in order to help prevent the traffic jams on the slip roads which are a significant contributor to the M50 congestion.
 
Effective management of the 20 car parks in the city centre has proven that it is possible to have spaces available as a priority for shoppers other than commuters or staff and not fuel congestion, as is currently the situation on the M50.

All that said we believe that the greatest challenge the government has is the reform of the public service and making it accountable! The state sector salaries have grown higher than those in the private sector and their pension funds with defined benefits are paid for by the taxpayer. This creates a growing inequality in Irish civic society and if left to foster will undermine social cohesion and democracy and we hope the government will confront this challenge.

Dublin is one of the safest cities to live in, in the world, we would like to congratulate the Gardai in particular on their performance in relation to city centre major events management.

We asked on St Patrick's Day two years ago that there would be a voluntary closure by those who sell alcohol as a takeaway product up to 6.00pm on the day. We are pleased that some movement was made this year and we believe it did help the situation however there is a still a case to be answered by those who have not yet accepted responsibility and think that they can push it onto parents. We believe that the off-licenses in suburbia should close next year until 4.00pm to support their colleagues who did so this year. We also believe that large supermarkets should cease advertising alcohol during St. Patrick's Festival week and that the manufacturers should also cease advertising alcohol during this time and not try to put responsibility on to parents. Those who manufacture, advertise and sell alcohol to people underage or to those who are drunk, are the cause of the problem and they need to face up to that fact and that they are part of the problem, but can also be part of the solution.

Dublin continues to be an attractive city to live in and do business in and is particularly successful as a base for US companies accessing the Eurozone. It provides good access and is a knowledge management based economy and this was recently evidenced by Google's decision to locate in Dublin rather than Athlone.  Government policy insisting that businesses located elsewhere is at best unwise. There is a challenge in developing the economy of the city centre in the secondary streets and there is a need for a specific policy to develop law-abiding enterprise in these streets. This is both a challenge and opportunity.

The critical factors for a successful city is that those who live in, work in and visit the city find it a nice, enjoyable and clean place to be. But none of these on their own are sufficient unless it is a safe place to be. As we have said Dublin is one of the safest cities in the world but there is a problem with misdemeanours on the streets. And these misdemeanours should be dealt with in a community court, where the result is not a jail term but restorative justice. We have proposed to government that they should implement a pilot project in Dublin city centre based on the Manhattan Community Courts. This we believe is a positive initiative, which will help considerably in dealing with misdemeanour public offences.

And finally I would like to thank the membership for the pleasure of acting as their Chairman for the past three years. It has been an exciting, challenging and interesting three years.