Residents are hung up on capital’s new phone kiosks
Booths spark curiosity among young but others fear vandalism
RESIDENTS of the capital have been left flummoxed by the appearance of 22 new ‘digital pedestals’ across the city.
The kiosks installed by Eir, in collaboration with Dublin City Council, have puzzled many, especially young people who’ve never used a landline before.
Passers-by could be seen doing double takes after spotting the new structures this week, with some even giving them a wide berth.
They incorporate a traditional touch-tone payphone and a touchsensitive information screen on one side, with a large, high-resolution screen for ads on the other.
‘I don’t know anyone’s number,’ said passer-by Mary Dillon, after spotting one on the Clontarf Road with her friend Emma Preston.
‘I don’t even know my dad’s number so I wouldn’t be able to ring anybody.’
Eir says the kiosks ‘are designed to play a role that is more suitable to city life today, not only as a point of connectivity, but as an information system for the local authority’s services including mapping systems for visitors and residents when life returns to normal’.
However, they’ve already attracted the wrath of the Green Party which says they’re eyesores and only there to make money.
‘The kiosks I’ve seen are positioned in such a way as to give the best view of the advertising screens to oncoming traffic,’ said Green Party Councillor Janet Horner. ‘So the motivation seems to be primarily advertising revenue.
‘We shouldn’t be aiming for bareminimum standards on our footpaths; just saying can you squeeze by in a wheelchair? Can you squeeze by in a buggy?
‘We should be looking for a comfortable public-realm experience, and having unnecessary clutter aimed at advertising to drivers is just not the direction we should be going in. We should be looking for clear, unobstructed, wide footpaths.’
Eir counters that the new kiosks ‘have a smaller footprint, taking up less space on the pavement’, and that old phone boxes will be removed completely.
But Ms Horner is unconvinced. ‘It’s Eir who are installing them and managing them and maintaining them,’ she said, ‘as it was with the previous ones, which they didn’t maintain. In my area there’s a really derelict phone box which is just a big obstructive block on the pavement. They haven’t removed it or maintained it so it’s just gone derelict.
‘So I don’t really trust Eir to maintain them. And phone boxes have historically attracted vandalism.’
Marie Dunne, in her 80s and from Clontarf, had similar concerns. ‘Going back years ago I remember seeing them in New York. Payphones were all over. No one seemed to vandalise them, here it’s just… something to do.
‘I was surprised on account of Covid and people handling the phones and all. That’s where I know I’d be nervous, but then again I’m one of the old folks.’
A woman on Dorset Street, who didn’t want to be named, was also surprised to see the phones were coin-operated. ‘Ah for goodness sake that’ll be robbed,’ she said. ‘They’ll try to break it if there’s a load of coins in it.’
The phones also drew some scorn for their €2 minimum charge and €1-a-minute to mobiles thereafter.
The kiosks leave behind the cubicle-style design of old phone boxes in favour of a more open design, offering little privacy to Clark Kent or anyone else.
However, there are some fans. ‘I’m happy with it because people used the old one as a bathroom,’ said Anastasia Materno, who works in a salon next to one of the kiosks.