Comment & Analysis: He’s described as an artist, performer and politician, but does Cllr Mannix Flynn artfully blur the lines between these more than he lets on?
Cllr Mannix Flynn seems like by far the most interesting character on Dublin City Council. He’s eccentric. But in terms of his actions as a councillor, it feels like he is also playing a character.
Councillor Mannix Flynn said there were concerns Parliament Street could become a “drunk’s street” as had happened elsewhere in the city, leaving traders asking that cars be brought back. He asked why councillors were learning of this through the media and not well in advance.
The council’s head of traffic, Brendan O’Brien, said “all these measures were actually in the city centre transport plan, which came out in September 2023, which went to a huge level of consultation and discussion.”
It feels like some of the article was edited down to the point of it losing context. O’Brien was replying to Cllr Flynn (as well as Cllr Nial Ring) complaining about consultation as if it had not already happened and acting if they and some fellow councillors had not already tried to block the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan measures a number of times.
For clarity: They failed when their fellow councillors made it clear they were having none of it.
The Irish Times and other media outlets are happy to quote Cllr Flynn often without really showing how wild his performance as a councillor is. Just reporting part of what was said without including the daftness or giving context around how wrong he is will lead many readers astray.
For example, just reporting the line “He asked why councillors were learning of this through the media and not well in advance” is a key one here.
In the monthly council meeting, Cllr Flynn said: “And I asked Dublin City Council why did they not make the consultation before doing all this why is this all being pushed out and we’re learning this particular news uh through RTÉ News bulletins and members of the Green Party when it should have come to us in the first place in this in the South East Area meeting, I’m again disappointed in the manor of Dublin City Council traffic department…”
The media outlets which reported on the planned traffic changes for Parliament Street and Westland Row did so after councillors were sent their monthly information packs ahead of the media reporting on it.
Did any Green Party councillor who spoke to the media have any special insight? Not really, besides reading the council’s Quarter 1 transport report, which was sent to councillors and published on the council’s website by the time RTÉ reported on it.
This is pure performative stuff. But it’s not new or original (he made similar claims around the Strand Road saga), and it’s only somewhat interesting because of the dynamics between his play-acting and how the media then covers that. Some might see it as drama. For many involved, it’s tiring and boring.
Ahead of this article, I messaged Cllr Flynn and asked if he was having issues with his council email account, and I outlined that, as far as I can tell, other councillors got their information packs ahead of the meeting before RTÉ reported on it. He didn’t reply.
At the monthly council meeting on Monday night (see video below), Cllr Flynn said: “It goes without saying that everybody wants a safer cleaner you know walkable you know movable city and certainly wants one that’s kind of active travel for all modes of transport and that there’s an equality and a democracy in terms of road space and public space.”
However, active travel is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “methods of travel such as walking and cycling that exercise the body, rather than travelling using a vehicle with an engine such as a car.” While some transport bodies’ definitions of ‘active travel’ include scooters or mobility devices, which include limited to no level of exercise, no definitions include all modes of transport, including cars.
So, the only way a “kind of active travel for all modes of transport” exists is as an art form — Mannix acting as if he’s using newspeak or after spending years in Co Kerry, he likely picked up the some vibes from the famous Healy-Rae family — who are also performers as much as they are politicians. Maybe some time in the future, we’ll hear Mannix on ‘RTÉ Arena’ or a similar show explaining his inspiration for his greatest performance.
Cllr Flynn, who has objected to the College Green Plaza, making Capel Street car-free, and also many cycle routes, on Monday night continued: “So basically, as I say, in principle, one would welcome these situations.”
He keeps saying things like this, that he’s all for something when he’s objecting to those very things. I mean, many politicians do the same thing, but Cllr Flynn really has it down to an art form. At one point — while objecting to cycle routes — he had his claimed support for cycling plastered over his website and literature.
On Monday, he further stated: “But I would caution because the most recent situation in Drury Street, which is semi-pedestrianized, is that the people who own the shops there are looking to get the cars back into that street because of the levels of antisocial behaviour and simply it’s turned into a drunk zone.”
“So pedestrianising Parliament Street, which has a huge amount of residents, more residents than businesses, there’s grave concern with the residents that the likes of Parliament Street will simply become a drunk zone and that they be just wholesale antisocial behaviour,” he said.
This is where the performance goes a bit sour — it’s asinine behaviour, and it’s toxic. What do I mean by that? Am I just saying it to take a cheap shot at him? No, there’s some truth to some of what Cllr Flynn outlines sometimes, but rather than looking for some kind of productive solution, he goes to the extreme.
Drury Street can sometimes be problematic because there are so few spaces like it on the southside and because of other issues such as policing issues. Making Parliament Street car-free too will likely help things overall because it will spread out people by giving more options, just as actually making South William Street car-free would.
I also asked Cllr Flynn how many businesses on Drury St had said to him that they wanted cars back on the street. I followed up on these requests with a number of requests for comment. There was no reply from Cllr Flynn.
Some business owners are the most conservative people going, and repeated research shows they often overstate how many of their customers come by car (and Luas too, while the poor old bus, which is the workhorse of transport in Dublin City Centre, is underestimated). So, a non-reply doesn’t mean it isn’t the view of one or two business owners, and clearly, some are having issues with the changing nature of the street.
Then, he moved on to the Westland Row / Pearse Street changes, which are clear bus priority measures. It has been made clear more than a few times to councillors that Westland Row is mainly staying open to general traffic because larger trucks cannot use any of the routes because of low railway bridges. This is something some councillors keep forgetting somehow.
“Businesses in the area in and around that particular district of Pease Street are apoplectic. They’re completely confused as to what happened,” said Cllr Flynn. But who’s at least partly responsible for the confusion? Cllr Flynn, you can stare into the mirror on that one. As this website has outlined more than a few times, councillors are not neutral parties in how the public are informed, and Cllr Flynn generally causes more confusion than clarity.
Then he claimed: “And as I say we don’t want the scenario that happened out along the Clontarf Road when we were building that way, where most of the business went out of business” — but this is not just an extreme exaggeration, but a total work of fiction.
There was business closed related to a retirement of a business owner along the Clontarf to City Centre project, and another business owner was obsessed about the project years before it even started construction to the point that he had his business premises lined up to be sold and a job found elsewhere before the main construction started. That sad state of affairs has to be repeated because of the fiction broadcasted by the likes of Cllr Flynn.
Cllr Flynn than said: “So if you’re going to have you know pedestrianization and rerouting of traffic you want to be really clear otherwise you simply won’t have people within the city they won’t come into the city because the only mode of transport that they feel are safe while we wait for the policing of the public transport system is the motor car.”
This, too, is taking a concern some have and then twisting reality to the extreme that any productive point he might have is lost. The reality is that a clear majority of visitors to the city centre, including shoppers and those visiting for leisure are not driving.
But — and this is key — nobody is stopping people visiting the city centre from driving in. Is it sometimes a bit more difficult because priority is being given to sustainable transport? Yes, there’s no point denying that. But access is far from being blocked and in some cases with through traffic removed it’s easier to access car parks.
“So I’d caution against this situation you know because as I say you could end up with a situation in our city centre where it’s just abandoned to antisocial behaviour because let’s face it what actually is in Parliament Street, I mean we saw what happened to Capel Street and the concerns down there with with various individuals then we walk down Capel Street now it’s just a clutter…” he said.
Capel Street is a success. It’s a minority view that it’s not, despite the picture Cllr Flynn wants to paint. But an important point here is what he views as “antisocial behaviour”. Again, there’s no denying that there’s antisocial behaviour, but what does he view as antisocial behaviour? There have been more than a few times he’s implied that streets of younger people simply having fun is antisocial just because they are drinking.
So, this is existential-shifting performance: A man who as an artist tells of a wild past he had on Dublin’s streets — and denying on air that he’s viewing things via rose-tinted glasses — to seemingly branding people having fun today as antisocial behaviour.
On Monday, he couldn’t leave it at that; he had not mentioned those dreaded cyclists. But it’s also another case of Cllr Flynn not actually talking about what he says he’s talking about.
“And you’re unsure of what’s happening the other situation is that that Capel Street which is being presented as pedestrian street is actually open to cyclists now if you get a bang of an electric bike at 30 miles an hour you’ll know all about it and that’s what’s happening in that particular street people are stepping out and walking now thinking it’s pedestrianised when it’s actually not pedestrianised it’s traffic free so we need to be really really clear here and as I said again I’m all on for a cleaner decent environment that we can all be safe in but we need to be very very clear about this,” he said.
Dublin City Council branded the street as “traffic free”. None of the consultations etc mentioned pedestrianisation. It was the media who called it pedestrianisation, and the way Cllr Flynn and others go around it doesn’t help things.
Cllr Flynn has even claimed a few times that the likes of Grafton Street are not pedestrianised because of deliveries. Most large pedestrian streets in the world allow deliveries at some point in the morning time. But again, he takes what is somewhat a valid point that deliveries can be too messy on pedestrian streets and just dials up the drama to 1,000%.
There’s also no cyclists doing “30 miles an hour” (48km/h) — maybe some gurriers on a totally and plainly illegal motorcycle did that speed.
There’s an issue on Caple Street with illegal “bikes” which are legally viewed as types of light motorcycles but look like bicycles, mainly used by food delivery riders, as well as some illegal scooters. Some people, including some councillors, are confused about this, and others might be just twisting the situation to suit their narrative. It’s an issue that requires enforcement — Gardaí already have clear powers, the law is clear, and the worst offenders are clear to spot. Muddling the issue does not help.
You need something like a 1,500+ word article to debunk his nonsense. It would take up too much time in a council meeting, and when anybody tries to challenge him and break his performance, it turns often turns to shouting in the council chamber.