Market campaigner says the public has a right to access the city’s Victorian fruit and vegetable market

In 2019, Dublin City Council closed the Victorian fruit and vegetable market in the north inner-city, with plans to refurbish and relaunch it as a mixed retail and wholesale market.

The council has a multi-step plan to get it back open, and in the meantime, lets the building out for occasional events, including a recent St Patrick’s Day Festival event Me Auld Flower.

But how the council has gone about this closure is legally dubious, says Toby Simmonds, a market trader and campaigner and owner of the Real Olive Company.

If the building is suitable for events it should be suitable to operate as a market, he says.

Moreover, the public has a common-law right to access the market, and the council needs to replace the market if it’s going to close it, says Simmonds.

“The market right was made for the benefit of the citizens of Dublin and [Dublin City Council] has an obligation to provide this marketplace,” says Simmonds, who has fought several legal cases relating to markets and casual trading.

Edward Cousins, a barrister and co-author of the legal textbook Law of Markets and Fairs, says that historic laws may indeed come into play.

“Both under the principles of common law and statute it is the duty of the market owner to hold markets on the prescribed days and to provide a place for the holding of the markets of a size sufficient for the convenient accommodation of all who are ready to buy and sell in the market,” says Cousins, who is qualified in Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as England and Wales.

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council says that the refurbishment of the Victorian market was delayed due to Covid-19 and other issues, including funding.

“We anticipate conservation and refurbishment works will commence towards the end of this year,” says the spokesperson. “It should be noted that the City Council can close any premises in its ownership for works to that building.”

A “Market Right”

Simmonds is no stranger to litigation on matters relating to markets and casual trading. He lost a supreme court battle with Kilkenny Borough Council in 2011, but had more success challenging Ennis Town Council in 2012.

Simmonds – who is involved in two Cork-based businesses, he owns the Real Olive Company and is also a co-owner of the cheesemakers Toons Bridge Dairy – has hawked his products at markets around Ireland since the 1990s.

Through that, he has learned about the laws that govern markets from other market traders, he says.

The public has a “market right” – a right to access the market – and that is a common-law property right protected by the constitution, says Simmonds.

At the moment there is no large-scale purpose-built market running in Dublin city centre. Both of the traditional public markets are closed.

The council should not have leased the Iveagh Market to a private developer, says Simmonds.

Nor should it have closed the Victorian market, he says. “This is the last legal marketplace with a market right in Dublin and this must be considered.”

Lots of market traders want to sell their food products in Dublin city centre, he says, and the public has a right to buy that produce on the days of the week specified in the 1897 Corporation of Dublin bye-laws. In other words, from Monday to Saturday.

Simmonds says that those bye-laws have not been overridden and the market right can’t be extinguished.

To close the markets, the council should have replaced them somewhere else in the city, he says, with a similar-sized market. “You cannot diminish it, you can only increase it.”

Public markets play a particular role in the life of a city.

“As commercial rents balloon in Dublin, a low-rent market, especially for foods is needed more than ever,” says Simmonds.

A good market should give new growers and food producers a chance to get a start and provide the public with an opportunity to buy quality food and sample a range of diverse products.

Rents should be in line with the English Market in Cork to achieve success, says Simmonds.

“My family were 130 years in the market,” says Joe Duffy, a fruit and vegetable wholesaler who moved out of the Victorian market in 2019. “My grandparents would have met in that building.”

His grandfather was an auctioneer, selling flowers, Christmas trees and fruit in the 1900s. His grandmother was a buyer, he says.

His father started working with his grandfather in the 1950s, he says, and he started there himself in the 1970s.

In the 1980s and 1990s, greengrocers came from all over Ireland to buy fruit and veg in the market, he says.

Trade had slowed in more recent years, he says. Around 20 years ago, supermarkets became dominant and squeezed out many greengrocers.

“The whole scene changed when supermarkets got bigger and bigger,” says Duffy. The last 10 years were particularly quiet, he says.

Doing Them Up

Dublin City Council’s initial idea was to recruit a private operator to carry out the refurbishment works and run the Victorian market.

But councillors feared that would drive up rents for traders, leaving a market aimed more at tourists than locals.

The council then agreed to fund the works itself. In December 2022, it appointed a design team.

Once the designs are completed, the council plans to tender for a builder and later, once the building work is underway, tender for a company to run the markets.

Duffy, the fruit and vegetable wholesaler, says the council should carry out basic works and prioritise getting the markets up and running as soon as possible.

He fears that if left unused the building could fall into dereliction like the Iveagh Markets, he says. “If they leave it much longer it will go like the other markets.”

When he moved out, the council was saying it needed to do refurbishment works including upgrading the sewers, which hadn’t been changed since Victorian times, he says.

He thought the council would carry out refurbishment works quickly, he says, but it leased the building to a construction company for storage for a year and a half.

Duffy says he would like to see the Victorian market revamped to help rejuvenate the area.

“It would be nice to see it like one of the ones in Europe, like Barcelona or Portugal,” he says. “Most cities have a lovely market in the centre of them.”

But the council used the refurbishment to kill off the use of the market by wholesalers, says Simmonds, and now with those traders gone, it still hasn’t done anything to improve the building.

“They should not have spent 20-odd years refusing people licences on the basis that they were going to redevelop the market,” he says. “What is an acceptable amount of time?”

Lots of traders want a pitch in Dublin city centre and they don’t expect cushy conditions, he says. “The council have been running events there. If it’s suitable for that then it’s suitable for markets.”

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council says the building works couldn’t go ahead while food businesses were operating in the market.

“While the building is in reasonable condition, substantial works are needed to bring it up to modern day standards and conserve it for the future,” they said.

Plans include conservation works to the roof, the walls and the steel structure, building a new toilet block, installing drinking water, upgrading the electrics and the drainage, tapping into solar energy, and changing the flooring, they said.

“When the building closed in 2019, it was our intention to proceed with the tender process then and survey work and archaeological evaluation were carried out,” said the spokesperson.

“However due to the pandemic, the impact of shutdown particularly on Markets globally, impact on construction industry, escalating costs and funding availability this was delayed,” said the spokesperson.

Design work is underway and the council expects that the conservation and refurbishment work should start by the end of this year, says the spokesperson.