Starting Afresh

When Dylan Haskins announced via Twitter that he was running as an Independent candidate in the February 25 election, people took notice. In a week, his super-slick campaign video had been viewed 22,000 times. An image from his first rally in Andrew’s Lane Theatre made the front cover of the Metro Herald.

Walking around the constituency he hopes to make his own, Dublin South East, I’ve overheard punters drop his name about a dozen times. One woman called him “adorable”. Another called him “Macaulay Culkin”. Any road, he’s being talked about.
Before I meet Haskins on an exceptionally blustery afternoon (bless any poster that manages to stay put through the night), I seek out the owners of the cafe where I’ll be doing the interview to ask their permission to take his picture on the premises. I discover that not only have they been following his campaign, but they’re hugely excited by the young upstart. Clearly, the 23-year-old is a charismatic fellow, but then so were Haughey, Nixon and Count Duckula. The important question is: what has Dylan Haskins done for us lately?
Well, in 2006, Haskins established the Hideaway House, an all-ages music venue in South County Dublin, and later, DIY label, Hideaway Records, which has released albums by Kidd Blunt, Hooray For Humans and most notably Here, Not There, the gorgeous debut by sister act Heathers that topped the Irish indie charts in 2010. Haskins himself has racked up tens of thousands of miles driving his acts on British and American tours.
Alongside the Hideaway project, he founded Exchange Dublin, a volunteer-run, not-for-profit social centre in Temple Bar, and has recently become the youngest ever member of the board of directors of the Project Arts Centre.
He’s also worked as a broadcaster for RTÉ since 2009, on TV show Two Tube and Radio 1’s Arena, where he’s given independent acts valuable national exposure. Just last month, a documentary he made about DIY culture, titled Roll Up Your Sleeves, caught the eye of a handful of international publications when Haskins made it available online.
All the while, he’s been studying History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College.
“This is probably one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made,” Haskins tells me, as he gulps down a mouthful of tea. “I’ve put a lot of things on hold to do this. I’ve had to stop work in RTÉ and stop college, really. I’d like to finish my degree in Trinity but this needs to be done now. It can’t wait. The fact that I gave it such a huge amount of thought meant that when I went for it, I was sprinting.”
Haskins, as you may have already guessed, is the youngest candidate ever to run in a general election, but he’s quick to bring up his pro-active past.
“I’ve always been very political, I just was never attracted to the established political system. I didn’t see it as an effective way of getting anything done, so I focused my energy on doing things on the ground that I found were really fulfilling and empowering. I think a house that represents Ireland should look like Ireland and that means in terms of gender and age. And you can’t say, ‘There should be more young people. There should be more women’ – you just have to stand. I thought I should put my money where my mouth is, which is how I’ve always operated.
“But age is not the issue, it’s about ideas and attitude,” he adds. “It’s the type of politician that you are and why you go into politics.”
Haskins isn’t from a political family, he didn’t grow up wanting to be Taoiseach and as he playfully points out in one of his campaign video blogs, he doesn’t play golf.
“Politics should never be a vocation, it should be a service. We’re in an important moment in the history of the Irish State, where a huge shift needs to happen in terms of what type of politicians we have. At the moment, we’re constantly firefighting: if a problem comes up, we legislate against it. We don’t debate drug policy in Ireland – Joe Duffy gives out about head shops, we legislate against head shops. It needs a much more grounded, calm and common sense approach. Markets supply demand. If these head shops are springing up all around the country, maybe there’s something slightly amiss. Maybe young people aren’t feeling any sense of fulfilment in their lives, and why is that? That comes from the opportunities that are created for them by the older people who are running our country.”
As a longtime promoter of the arts, Haskins has devoted a large chunk of his manifesto to what he calls “reinvigorating the city”.
“There are a lot of interesting things happening in Dublin. The problem is that there’s all these people trying to start projects but they get shut down because bureaucracy catches up with them. We faced that with Exchange. We got a letter from the Arts Department saying, ‘In recognition of your valuable contribution to the Arts in Dublin city, here’s a grant of €2,000’, at the same time as getting a letter from the planning department going ‘You’re operating a non-commercial venue in a retail space, cease what you’re doing immediately’. It’s about removing the bureaucracy and saying, ‘OK we don’t have a lot of money, but how do we use the resources that we do have’?”
In a bid to define himself as a new breed of political figure, Haskins has based his campaign around transparency. If he’s elected, he’s promised to donate a quarter of his €100,000 pay packet to setting up a Creative Investment Fund and he’s adamant that the details of all his income and expenditure will be published on his website.
“By me publishing my accounts weekly,” he says, “it sets the standard. It’s been funny watching who’s been following me this week on Twitter… loads of politicians!”
For the next three weeks, it’s all about knocking on doors. Has Haskins considered what’s to come if he does get elected? He will, after all, be sharing office with 165 men and women of totally different political backgrounds.
“I want to go in there because I’m different,” he stresses. “I’m not aspiring to be a part of what that is, so I will still be true to myself and how I operate when I go in there.
“Obviously there’s new things that I’ll have to learn, but I learn pretty quickly,” he shrugs. “It comes down to the things I’ve put forward in my manifesto, a lot of them don’t require anything to do with the Dáil. Starting a Monthly Constituency Forum and donating a quarter of my annual TD salary to starting a Creative Investment Fund – they can be done as soon as I’m elected. I don’t need to pass legislation. It’s a new world, and I look forward to engaging it, but I hope that the next time around there’ll be more people like me running who I can form alliances with, and who will be of the same attitude.”
He gulps down another mouthful of tea and cracks a smile. “It just might be lonely at the beginning.”

To find out more about Dylan Haskins’ policies, visit dylanhaskins.ie. Jape, Heathers and Adebisi Shank (DJ Set) plus special guests play the Button Factory, Dublin on February 19, with all proceeds going to the Dylan Haskins campaign. Admission is €10.