Dublin Bus Stops and Adshell

national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Wednesday February 02, 2005 18:38 by Sean

There was a comment made in another post about the connection between Adshel and Dublin Bus Stops. I wrote an article about it roughly a year ago, but it relates to the current situation. Below is most of the article...

Dublin Bus:
Changing with the City

“Changing with the City” is the slogan that was recently adopted by Bus Átha Cliath, or Dublin Bus, to accompany its logo. This is a very accurate phrase, as both Dublin and Dublin Bus are going through unprecedented transformations. According to the 2003 A.T. Kearney/FOREIGN POLICY Globalization Index, Ireland is now the most globalised country in the world. Ireland’s position in this index is due to the recent economic period that many have nicknamed the Celtic Tiger. Dublin, the capital and largest city of Ireland, is at the center of the country’s global activities and it has undergone several significant social and economic changes that were produced by the Celtic Tiger.

Commuters on Dublin Bus can clearly see the remarkable changes that have recently taken place throughout Dublin, even on the shortest of bus journeys. In fact, one does not even need to board a Dublin Bus to understand the significance of these changes. A simple examination of a Dublin bus shelter reveals exactly what has taken place in Dublin, and throughout the rest of the country during the Celtic Tiger. The control of the bus shelter is identical to the control held over most industries in Ireland. The attack on Dublin Bus workers through government policy is similar to the attacks mounted against other workers in Ireland. Lastly, the uncomfortable bench located at each bus shelter is indicative of the current government’s response to the growing economic disparity taking place within Ireland. These characteristics of Dublin bus shelters demonstrate how neoliberal philosophy has advanced throughout Irish society.

Adshel and Clear Channel
The bus shelters located throughout Dublin are not owned by Dublin Bus, or even Dublin Corporation, but are instead under the control of the Adshel company. Adshel holds a municipal contract that allows the company to collect the lucrative revenue generated by the advertising display spaces located within all of its bus shelters, and in exchange the company constructs and maintains each shelter for Dublin Bus. As a result of this contract, and contracts agreed with other localities in Ireland, Adshel today owns and operates over 5,000 advertising panels in Dublin and throughout the country.

Adshel’s activities are not part of a situation that is unique to Ireland. The company holds over 6,000 municipal contracts with other cities throughout the world that are similar to the conditions found within the Irish contracts. Adshel’s advertising panels can be found in sixty-five countries around the world, spanning across all of the continents, with the exception of Antarctica. The overwhelming presence of Adshel is a clear illustration of how corporate advertising has increasingly grown to dominate more public services on both national and international levels. This process should be seen as a direct consequence of neoliberal economic policies, policies that consistently view social expenditure with contempt, while at the same time funneling more power and profit to large multinational corporations.

While Adshel is a large corporation by itself, the control of Dublin bus shelters is actually controlled by a much larger organization. Adshel is a subsidiary of the massive media conglomerate, Clear Channel, which is based in San Antonio, Texas. Clear Channel is one of the most powerful corporations in the music and media industry in the United States, and it is continuing to rapidly expand on the international level. The alarming influence Clear Channel wields throughout America, and its growing rate of international dominance is revealed through a brief overview of some of the company’s portfolio.

Clear Channel owns over 1,200 radio stations in the U.S., or approximately one in every ten stations in the country. It owns 200 major concert halls and thirty-seven television stations across the nation. Following its purchase of America’s largest concert and events promoter in 2000, Clear Channel accounted for 70% of all national ticket sales in 2001. The company is therefore able to control several segments of the music industry, including radio play, tour promotion, live concerts and tickets sales.

Beyond the music industry, Clear Channel also owns over 770,000 billboards in the United States which are estimated to reach more than half of the U.S. adult population.
Its talent management and marketing agency represents several hundred athletes around the world, including Michael Jordan, Andre Agassi, and David Beckham. The power and dominance of Clear Channel is truly staggering, as is the short amount of time that it has taken to reach its current size.

Nine years ago, Clear Channel was owned by Texas radio billionaire L. Lowry Mays, and at the time owned “only” 36 radio stations. Before 1996, the maximum number of radio stations one company was permitted to own in the United States was forty. The 1996 Telecommunications Act radically changed this regulation by lifting ownership restrictions, which then encouraged a blitz of mergers and acquisitions that was unprecedented in the history of the American media industry. According to the BIA Financial Network, over 10,000 radio transactions worth approximately $100 billion have taken place since the act was passed.

There are now 1,100 fewer station owners in the American radio industry today, down 30% since 1996. One Clear Channel station executive has estimated that the act has eliminated nearly 10,000 radio-related jobs. Clear Channel today consists of what were once seventy separate broadcast companies. The rapid expansion of Clear Channel’s influence should therefore be understood in light of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was piece of legislation that consolidated control of the American media industry amongst a handful of media conglomerates, by reducing government involvement within an industry responsible for public broadcasts.

Clear Channel has aimed to mirror its dominance within the United States in countries around the world, and Ireland has been no exception. Added to its control of Dublin bus shelters, Clear Channel owns More O’Ferrall, a billboard company that operates throughout Ireland’s major cities and roadways. Clear Channel advertising can also be found at The Point Depot, Ireland’s biggest indoor arena, at Lansdowne Road, the stadium that hosts Irish rugby and soccer matches, and at Dublin seaports. Most recently, Clear Channel has announced a sales and distribution agreement with Cabvertise, which allows it to advertise on taxi’s nationwide.

Clear Channel is also very influential within the Irish music industry. The company is a major concert promoter in Ireland, and was recently linked to plans to acquire MCD, one of its biggest rivals in the promotion industry. Clear Channel’s subsidiary SFX, recently promoted the “U2 Elevation Tour 2001”, which was held in arenas around the world. The company has also announced interest in developing an 11,000-seat arena in the greater Dublin area.

Adshel’s control of Dublin bus shelters is therefore only one aspect of Clear Channel’s activities in Ireland. Similar to the end results of the much applauded technology and pharmaceutical industries located in Ireland, Clear Channel provides another example of how resources are funneled away from the average Irish citizen, and towards a multinational corporation. The Irish government has not been absent from this process, as its policies continue to encourage these developments to take place.

Privatization of Dublin Bus
As a medium in itself, Adshel bus shelters favor larger companies over local Dublin businesses. The rate of advertising with Adshel bus shelters for a seven-day cycle in 2004 ranges between €27, 664 and €29,300. Small, local firms cannot afford this price, and therefore the space is dominated by larger, mostly foreign, companies that command greater advertising budgets. This produces yet another obstacle for locally owned Irish firms when they try to compete with multinational corporations in the Irish market.

The profit interests of large corporations are not solely confined to the ownership and the advertising found at Dublin bus shelters. Recent plans by the Fianna Fáil-led Irish government reveal plans to break up CIE (a state owned group of companies that consists of Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Iarronród Éireann) in order to introduce privatization. Plans for the privatization of CIE are part of a wider strategy that is being pushed through by the Irish government. In recent years, the Irish government has privatized several public companies including Eircom, the national phone company, Irish Sugar, a national sugar manufacturer, Irish Life, the national insurance provider, and Irish Permanent, the former building society.

The privatization of Dublin Bus is already being attempted, as the government had hoped to franchise out 25% of Dublin Bus routes, including 25% of its stock and drivers, in January 2004. The government would like to franchise out a further quarter of the services to private operators for each additional year after 2004. And without any surprise, large companies have already come forward to express interest in purchasing Dublin Bus routes. Metroline, a subsidiary of Singapore based multinational, Delgo, is tipped to be at the forefront of this campaign. It already owns Citylink, which operates a route from Galway to Dublin, and Aerdart, which provides bus services from Dublin Airport to locations along Dublin’s rail network. Delgo also operates services in Glasgow and Edinburgh, where it has been criticised as an anti-union firm that has worsened workers’ conditions and downgraded the quality of the bus service.

The justification of the privatisation move comes under the banner of competition. The Transport Minister Séamus Brennan has previously attempted to sell the example of London buses as proof of the success of privatisation to Dublin Bus workers, but he has wisely retreated from this position in recent months. This is because the example in London provides clear evidence of what Dublin Bus workers and Dublin commuters can expect if privatization is pushed forward. It is the usual consequences that stem from privatization, added cost to the tax payers and users of the service, lowering of safety standards, and poor treatment of workers.

Following the privatization of London buses, state subsidies for bus transportation has increased to £575 million per annum, and this amount is expected to rise to £1 billion within the next six years. Added to the increase of subsidies, London commuters have faced a sharp increases in fares, some by up to 62% in certain urban areas. Safety regulations have also been relaxed, and buses in London are now on average 45% older, only ten years after privatization was introduced. Most bus drivers are now forced to work overtime as they cannot afford to live on the £16 to £18 thousand annual salary provided by private companies. The dissatisfaction amongst workers is demonstrated in the extraordinarily high turnover rate of approximately 20-25% amongst the work force. The privatization of London bus services has been nothing short of a disaster for everyone involved, everyone except those who have enjoyed great profits from the move.

The move towards privatisation of Dublin Bus is even more questionable due to the remarkable success of the public company. Dublin Bus made a €1.5 million profit in 2002, even after fares were rounded down during Ireland’s currency conversion to the Euro, which cost the company €1.8 million. Dublin Bus has proven itself to be highly efficient, as it receives the lowest level of public funding of all public sector transport companies in the European Union. Passenger numbers have also recently increased by approximately 3%, and 500,000 people now travel on Dublin Bus every day.

The privatization of Dublin Bus is part of the overall strategy being pushed by the Irish government to attack the strength of unions and workers nationwide. The government is aiming to remove a situation that provides workers with union organization and job security, and replace it with a program that is based upon bidding for contracts. If this program is installed, job security will be erased, as workers will not be able to predict the outcome of their company’s bid from year to year. Unions will lose strength, and more control will be shifted away from workers and towards the ownership of the private company.

Anti-Homeless Measure
Policies that funnel resources and power away from the majority of the population will have predictable consequences. They will obviously make a small, elite section of society extremely wealthy, and they will also place a great number of people in poverty. According to the report "Rights and Justice Work in Ireland: A New Baseline" compiled by Brian Harvey for the Joseph Roundtree Trust in 2002, the Celtic Tiger did exactly that. Between 1987-1999, the research found that while the top 20% of incomes rose by 19%, the bottom 20% of incomes fell by 1.2%. As economic institutions around the world proclaim the success of the Irish economy, the circumstances of those who were unable to profit from the Celtic Tiger are left completely ignored.

In 1997, during one of the widely acclaimed boom years of the Celtic Tiger, 17% of Irish children and 10% of Irish adults were in severe or ‘consistent’ poverty. According to the Combat Poverty organization, Ireland had the highest rate of child poverty in the European Union during the mid-1990s. At this time, many EU member countries had child poverty rates which were less than half the Irish rate. This information is widely disregarded, as most of the attention was instead focused on issues such as the amount of Foreign Direct Investment brought into the country.

The widespread existence of poverty in Ireland did not improve after 1997. The Economic and Social Research Institute explained in its publication, Monitoring Poverty Trends in Ireland: Results from the 2000 Living in Ireland Survey, that one in every four households and one in every five people in Ireland were living in poverty in 2000. Of those households in poverty, almost two-thirds (65.7%) contained children. The study found that 300,000 Irish children, or approximately one out of every four children in the country, were living in poverty in 2000.

The Irish government recently provided their usual response to this situation in the 2004 Budget. The government granted a €6 monthly increase in child benefit payments. When the government’s predictions of inflation rates for 2004 are taken into account, €3.14 of the payments (for first and second children) are erased, leaving €2.86 as the actual monthly increase. This amounts to 66 cents a week, or less than 10 cents a day. The poverty crisis in Ireland is compounded by the failure of the Irish government to provide adequate housing. In March 2003, the Housing Statistics Bulletin reported that there was a total of 48, 413 households, or approximately 130,000 people, on local authority waiting lists. This represents a 76.5% increase from 1996. It should therefore come as no surprise that the rate of homelessness in Ireland doubled between 1996 and 2002.

The attitude of the Irish government towards poverty and homelessness is further demonstrated in Dublin bus shelters. Adshel proclaims itself to be the “award-winning provider of street furniture solutions around the world,” and its solutions can be understood after only a single visit to one of its bus shelters in Dublin. A bench is located at each shelter, which is actually a thin, uncomfortable rail, that is angled slightly forward. It is extremely difficult for a person to sit on the bench without having both of their feet securely balanced on the ground below them. The design also makes it impossible for a person who does not have a home to lie or sleep on the bench. This is a strategy that is found not only in Ireland, as benches in cities throughout the world are now designed to be short, slanted, or sectioned off, sometimes removed completely as anti-homeless measures.

The Irish government therefore has no difficulties in acknowledging the alarming rise in poverty and homelessness within Dublin and around the country. Rather, it has shown that it has difficulty in reversing the current policies that move resources away from the majority of Irish people and towards an elite few. Refusing to acknowledge the obvious cause of widespread poverty in Ireland, the government has instead elected to develop an “out of sight, out of mind” series of policies.