MICHAEL WATTS: HANDLING AND HISTORY ARE BAD OMENS FOR THE CROSS

I am a sucker for a bit of history. Back in the dark days of the 1970’s when unemployment was high and inflation rampant, industrial unrest came to be known in certain quarters as the British Disease but the trade union activism in Ireland has a long and proud tradition going back many years earlier.

Back in the era of Red Clydeside and of the Tonypandy riots when Dublin reputedly had the worst slums this side of Calcutta, a dispute over unionising unskilled labour in the city resulted in some twenty thousand workers being dismissed in what came to be known as the Dublin lock-out. With neither side wishing to give an inch, the dispute lasted from August 1913 until the following January.

Interestingly workers in the Guinness brewery at St. James’ Gate had been free to join a union for some time and were unaffected by the turmoil around them so that production of The Black Stuff continued unabated for those who could find the price of a pint. Dublin too was the home of what was reputedly the longest strike in the world.

This took place in Downey’s pub in Dun Laoghaire following the dismissal of a trade union member and his replacement by a non-union barman. Beginning in March 1939, the dispute only ended with the death of the employer in 1953. At time of writing, the fair City is in the throes of another dispute, this time one between the Irish Greyhound Board and the Dublin Greyhound Owners and Breeders Association.

Many readers will probably be familiar with the basis of the dispute, at least in outline. Mired in debt and struggling to keep its head above water, the I.G.B. has decided that the only solution is for it to cash in some of its chips. It commissioned a well-respected bunch of bean counters and number crunchers called Indecon International Consultants to look into the financial crisis in the Irish greyhound racing industry.

Their report in 2014 advocated the sale for development of Dublin’s second greyhound stadium at Harold’s Cross. The decision is not without controversy. From the Board’s point of view, only the sale of a big city site is likely to free up enough cash to ease its debt burden. From the standpoint of the owners and breeders, the closure of The Cross, often seen as the city man’s track in contrast to Shelbourne Park which tends to be dominated by more rural trainers, would leave them with no place to race their dogs.

The Board closed Harold’s Cross stadium on 13^th February this year, triggering a picket on Shelbourne Park track which has resulted in no racing there for three months costing the promoters around €30,000 a week. Something like €200,000 in prize money has not been paid out during the dispute but most of this would presumably still be up for grabs should the dispute be resolved and racing resumed once more.

Matters came to a head last Tuesday, with an announcement by the Board that Harold’s Cross Greyhound Stadium was sold. By comparison with England, very few dog tracks in Ireland have closed down the years. The Brandywell Stadium in Derry was the most recent to do so, closing its doors for the last time in November to make way for a £7 million redevelopment of the site.

A new track at the Showgrounds just down the road is supposed to be in the pipeline but I for one am not holding my breath. The English experience has been that most tracks that close are redeveloped for housing, like the old Oxford stadium at Blackbirdleys which was purchase for in excess of £54 million by Galliard Homes, who plan to erect one hundred and fifty houses and seventy five flats on the site after its former owners the GRA were refused permission to erect two hundred and twenty houses on the brownfield site in 2014.

The old Harringay track in north London was sold for £10.5 million in 1985 to make way for a Sainsbury’s supermarket. The Cross has in contrast been sold to that well known property developer the Department of Education. On their future plans for the site, the Department commented that “our initial review of demographic growth in relevant school planning areas adjacent to this site indicate significant increases at both primary and post-primary levels which will require provision for additional school places.

The exact configuration of schools to be provided on the Harold’s Cross site will be informed by the outcome of this demographic review”. I know precious little about education and still less about property development but to my jaundiced eye it does not look like the bulldozers will be going into action at The Cross any time soon.

Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick altogether, but it looks to me as if the Department has brought the property as a land banking exercise to allow for expansion of school facilities in the area at some future date. In the circumstances it seems remarkably public-spirited of the Department to come to the rescue of the greyhound industry in this fashion.

I would not have guessed that their own financial situation was so secure that they could have invested in a venture of this nature but as one who went through the mill in Dublin schools until I turned sixteen, it is pleasing to know that great educational opportunities beckon for future generations of inner city kids in my home town. “Financial terms of the deal” we are advised in the I.G.B. press release “were not disclosed by the Department”.

Scouring the newspapers and the internet, I can find no mention, no whisper or estimate as to how much the Department’s successful bid for The Cross amounts, other than that in the words of the I.G.B communiqué “the windfall from the Harold’s Cross sale will help cut debt at the semi-state and is expected to signal the end of the dispute”. “The sale of Harold’s Cross to the Department of Education and Skills has followed all correct procedures for the sale of assets between state agencies” an IGB spokesperson has stated, although we surely never doubted that it did.

“The debt has to be addressed now, irrespective of whatever Board or management is in place” he continued. “A partial sale of Harold’s Cross is a half measure and will not address the debt. The sale will provide for much needed investment in greyhound racing across the country and to support its future development.” It is a win-win deal then, with which all parties should be more than happy.

Dream on! The word on the street is that, far from drawing to a close, the dispute may be about to widen. A nationwide picket would, the Usual Suspects suggest, cause problems for the IGB who would be unable to meet their commitments to provide betting shop coverage via SIS who would in turn put pressure on the Board to reach a compromise with the Dublin owners and trainers.

Maybe this is just idle gossip, the usual grumbles of folk far removed from the centre of the action who make brave plans over their beer as closing time draws nigh. Whatever the truth of the matter, the pub talk is symptomatic of a widening gulf between the parties in the dispute.

Rightly or wrongly, the majority of the grass roots passionately believe that the IGB are prioritising appeasing their political masters, rather than addressing the hard held grievances of the owners and trainers at the coalface.

What saddens me is that track that has staged greyhound racing for ninety-odd years and which is still by all accounts a viable and profitable stand-alone business has had to be sacrificed to bail out an industry other sectors of which look distinctly shakey.

I am saddened too to see industry stakeholders fragmented into opposing factions and adopting entrenched positions that may long outlast the present dispute.

The Dublin Lock-Out of 1913 came to an end because the employers effectively starved the workers into submission, with the ringleaders blacklisted and forced to flee the country to feed their children. Let us hope that the picket at Shelbourne Park can be resolved more amicably.

Those who do not learn from the lessons of history are destined to repeat them and all that . . . .

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