Beggers on Dublin Streets

mikemac

Has anyone else noticed a lot of people begging around Dublin lately?

I walked from Easons on Middle Abbey Street up to Liffey Street Upper and counted five. This was at lunchtime today.

Three were 3 men in their late 20s or early 30's at a guess.
Other two were girls and I'd say they were no older than 16.
Everyone was sitting on the ground with coffee cups apart from the older girl who was walking up to people and asking for change.

Everytime I walk this street, there is usually at least one or two beggers but I was kinda shocked to see 5 within a 300 metre walk.

Is it because it's summer and there are lots of tourists around that caused this?
Also, if tthey were genuinly in need of money and decided to beg, why not go somewhere else and you won't be competing with 4 other beggers?
Is Middle Abbey Street the main place in Dublin for this because I haven't seen this elsewhere in Dublin.

Soory, that's a lot of questions.
Not looking for the rights or wrongs of giving money to beggers, just other's opinions on why so many in a small area.

Gone West

because homeless beggars aren't exactly at the top of the IQ tree.

SoupyNorman

Do yourself a favour and dont come to San Diego if that type of thing bothers you!!!!!

monkeyfudge

There does seem to be some sort of a system or beggars union in place.

I remember seeing an argument break out once as one guy was begging at an ATM when it was supposed to be someone elses shift at that machine.

Terry

the immigants took all the jobs selling the big issue.

magick

because homeless beggars aren't exactly at the top of the IQ tree.

and how would you know ? Not all beggers are mindless crack whores or scumbags , some may have been made homeless due to Special Circumstances.

Zapp Brannigan

magick wrote:

and how would you know ? Not all beggers are mindless crack whores or scumbags , some may have been made homeless due to Special Circumstances.

I don't know why but I laughed when I read the above post!

scop

You just happened to cover most of the best begging spots, the gauntlet of beggers begins on the Ha'Penny bridge so walking to there from Middle Abbey St,. you may see two, then under the arc as you walk to Temple Bar theres usually one, then under the arc towards central bank maybe two. Theres beggers everywhere in Dublin, all two tier societies have this, Ireland is just following London in the begger effect. Expect more as we become colder.

antSionnach

Do you know what I cant understand at all? How can they be so poor if they get social welfare. They must get social welfare? Im talking specifically about the ones who arent junkies etc. And doesnt everyone get a free house or something?

Lister1

Expect more as we become colder.

Thought they'd have more sense and stay indoors...

monkeyfudge

antSionnach wrote:

Do you know what I cant understand at all? How can they be so poor if they get social welfare. They must get social welfare? Im talking specifically about the ones who arent junkies etc. And doesnt everyone get a free house or something?

I believe you can't sign on if you don't have a fixed address.

Zapp Brannigan

monkeyfudge wrote:

I believe you can't sign on if you don't have a fixed address.

Yup, no fixed address no dole money.

scop

Lister1 wrote:

Thought they'd have more sense and stay indoors...

Hilarious. :rolleyes:

biko

There's a lot of them currently in G city too.

stepbar

There's one begger I can see from my apt window on a regular basis. Do you know what he does? When the traffic light go red he staggers up like a chicken to every car looking for money, pissed out of his head, hand out looking for money. TBH this sort of begger (i.e the alco sort) pisses me off. Im not an advocate for violence but sometimes I wish I could just kick him up the arse. And hes not the only one, there is a regular group that hang around aungier st, pissed out of their heads. Nearly got hit on the head by a glass one eve walking up from the shop by one of the lads in the group. I would have planted him one but I was afraid the other would beat the **** out of me. Dont have much time for them TBH....

FranknFurter

Slurms wrote:

Yup, no fixed address no dole money.

And if I remember correctly, the housing list is about 4-6 years of being "on the housing list".
Meantime you would be probably talking hostels and B&B's if you can afford it (which most cannot).

http://www.simoncommunity.com/Why_People_Become_Homeless.php

b

ThrownAway

FranknFurter wrote:

And if I remember correctly, the housing list is about 4-6 years of being "on the housing list".
Meantime you would be probably talking hostels and B&B's if you can afford it (which most cannot).

http://www.simoncommunity.com/Why_People_Become_Homeless.php

b

I was looking for cheap accomidation [under 150 a week] a few months ago and even found a place for 25 euro/ week in Cork. If they get the dole which has to be more than 25 a week surely then they can actually afford a place to live.

monkeyfudge

ThrownAway wrote:

I was looking for cheap accomidation [under 150 a week] a few months ago and even found a place for 25 euro/ week in Cork. If they get the dole which has to be more than 25 a week surely then they can actually afford a place to live.

It's still not that easy. Landlords look for references and a current adresses.

ThrownAway

monkeyfudge wrote:

It's still not that easy. Landlords look for references and a current adresses.

and they'd actually refuse them because they didn't have a place to live at present

Lister1

Can't they put it care of a relative/hostel or something?


Bit off topic but has anyone heard of a busker who plays off Grafton Street in Dublin, down the side street near the hotel(cant think of the hotel name but its at the back of the Gaeity) who is supposed to live in a massive house in Malahide somewhere. Had an arguement with people encrourching on his patch as well. Not sure if trure but someone told me about it once, didnt know whether to believe them...

DublinWriter

Lister1 wrote:

Can't they put it care of a relative/hostel or something?

I say this to all here that have been putting down these people; most homeless have come from very screwed up family backgrounds and most have mental health problems.

As for hostels, there isn't enough places in Dublin Homeless shelters because of a lack of resources.

Do yourself a favour and take a look around the city in which you live.

Not all were as lucky to have as good as start in life as you have had.

Yet you'll sit here, and happily bitch about them behind the comfort of four walls, a roof and a PC with broadband.

Some people judge the success of a country by how wealthy is it. I generally find that seeing how a country treats it's poor and vunerable to be a far more effective socio-economic indicator.

Zapp Brannigan

Lister1 wrote:

Bit off topic but has anyone heard of a busker who plays off Grafton Street in Dublin, down the side street near the hotel(cant think of the hotel name but its at the back of the Gaeity) who is supposed to live in a massive house in Malahide somewhere. Had an arguement with people encrourching on his patch as well. Not sure if trure but someone told me about it once, didnt know whether to believe them...

Well he's a busker so who cares? They're performing for money not just asking for some.

stepbar

Hold on here one moment no one puts a bottle of beer in their hand.....

Terry

stepbar wrote:

Hold on here one moment no one puts a bottle of beer in their hand.....

do you understand the concept of addiction?

nobody can truly understand this unless they have been addicted to something themselves.

Doctor DooM

There's a serious amount of ignoring flying in this thread.

stepbar

horse****, i stopped smoking 3 yrs ago. Thankfully I have a bit of willpower and pride in myself unlike some of the boyos I see on the street. They must have little value on life.
And I had no patches either....

monkeyfudge

Hey, if I was all out of options and hadn't the education or the ability to be able to pull myself back up out of the gutter then I'd definitely just waste my life away with drink.. what else is there?

Creamy Goodness

monkeyfudge wrote:

There does seem to be some sort of a system or beggars union in place.

I remember seeing an argument break out once as one guy was begging at an ATM when it was supposed to be someone elses shift at that machine.

this is the only thing that puzzles me about beggers.

right your out in town or where ever. ohh shoot i have NO MONEY, better go to the ATM.

off you go to the ATM where the minimum you can take out is ten euros (in notes)

you're hardly going to say take out 20 - 10 for you and 10 to give to the begger at the ATM - do they think they'll get a lot of money there?

monkeyfudge

Oh I know... It's the one place where I have absolutely no change to give away... and no way am I giving away paper money!

stepbar

Look, there are various genuine reasons why someone may turn out to be homeless, but Ill tell you something drink / drugs aint the answer and its these sort that I dont have much time for.... I certainly wont be giving them money to go buy another can of cider Ill tell you that much....

thebaz

the ignorance of some here on boards is unreal, i'd say there would be many who think beggers or homeless people should be executed, or imprisoned. The waiting list for social housing is over 5 years in Dublin, with rents at 900 euros a month for 1 bedrooms, and 300k for a bed flat to buy, it would be very easy to become homeless in Ireland, particularly with our newfound selfish attitude along with our material wealth. Maybe we should be gratefull and think , there go i but for the grace , if i was to split up with my missus .. instead of branding homeless as "Thicko junkies".

FranknFurter

stepbar wrote:

Look, there are various genuine reasons why someone may turn out to be homeless, but Ill tell you something drink / drugs aint the answer and its these sort that I dont have much time for.... I certainly wont be giving them money to go buy another can of cider Ill tell you that much....

Tell me, how do you decide who would use money for drink and / or drugs?
If you say "behaviour", then how do you know its not somone with a mental health issue?
If you say "dress" then, the last person I saw taking cocaine was wearing a pin-stripe suit and worked in the IFSC during the day.

Please, what *are* your criteria?
Im dying to know.

b

greenteaicedtea

Lister1 wrote:

Can't they put it care of a relative/hostel or something?

Because maybe they have worn out their welcome with family members, or they're not talking to family members at all, or something. Their bridges have been burned somehow.

stepbar

FranknFurter wrote:

Tell me, how do you decide who would use money for drink and / or drugs?
If you say "behaviour", then how do you know its not somone with a mental health issue?
If you say "dress" then, the last person I saw taking cocaine was wearing a pin-stripe suit and worked in the IFSC during the day.

Please, what *are* your criteria?
Im dying to know.

b

Mental health issue or not, NOBODY forces a drink down anybody neck or a forces someone to snort a line of coke. People make choices, simple as. There are lots of good people on this Island who have mental health problems and they dont turn to alcohol / drugs. Boyos who know the price of a can of cider have feck all mental health problems....

Attractive Nun

Call me cold, but the fact is that a large number of homeless people will use any money they are given to buy alcohol/drugs. I'm not necessarily condemning them, I'm sure there are a lot of legitimate problems that have led up to such a situation, but why give them money to - in the end - make their problem worse? If you want to help them, give to the simon community or actually help them. Too many people just sit around thinking they are great because they give their spare change to some Romanian.

I'm no saint when it comes to charity, I'll admit that, and to be honest I think you need a pretty unfortunate series of events in this day and age to have any sort of legitimate excuse as to why you have to live on the street. But some of the comments here 'in favour' of the homeless just stink of superiority.

FranknFurter

stepbar wrote:

Mental health issue or not, NOBODY forces a drink down anybody neck or a forces someone to snort a line of coke. People make choices, simple as. There are lots of good people on this Island who have mental health problems and they dont turn to alcohol / drugs. Boyos who know the price of a can of cider have feck all mental health problems....

Okay, not that I agree with that, but that was not my question.
Simply put, you said you wouldnt give money to somone you considered was going to spend it on drink and/or drugs. Implying that you would to somone who in your opinion was not.

My question was how is it you tell if the person will or wont do that?
Surely, given that you said that, you must have some criteria you use if you really do make that judgment?

b

Dragan

stepbar wrote:

horse****, i stopped smoking 3 yrs ago. Thankfully I have a bit of willpower and pride in myself unlike some of the boyos I see on the street. They must have little value on life.
And I had no patches either....

Your an idiot. Do you really think it's as easy as waking up and addict and being homeless. I used to work with the homeless on a regular basis and some of the stories were unreal....stuff that if it happened to me would crush me too and i know for a fact i would stop caring and drink myself to death as well.

Fair dues to you if you have gotten to a point in your life where you have never taken a drink to make yourself feel better. Or have you? Did your soccer team ever lose so you had a beer with the boys and a bitch over it? Did a girl friend ever leave you so you went to the fridge and took out a can just to have a drink??? I think if you look back at your life you will find many times where an outside source influenced you in having a drink for one reason or another.

No imagine that your wife leaves you for your brother, and takes the kids that you have worked 7 day weeks to support and you never get to see them again because they do a runner, or imagine you put everything you have into a company only to lose it all, or imagine your daughter is raped and murdered and she was all you had in the world so you do some "street justice" and when you get out you have nothing.

I suggest you look a little deeper and treat these people as just that, people.

There is a pretty fine line dividing where you are from where they are, in a world full of tragedy i hope you life never crosses it.

Degsy

The majority of the beggars i see at the top of o'connel street are romanian gypsies.These are professional beggars,who,according to an article in teh sunday world make thousands of euro a week and have huge palace-like houses back home.

fatboypee

I just popped me head into this thread here after seeing it on the front page...

I've no real earth shattering commentary to make, just simply wish to remark that if anyone wants to know why this country is going to hell in a hand-cart all they need to do is look at some of the outrageously inhumane, insulting, derogatory, arrogant, self obsessed and above all IGNORANT commentary in this thread.

One thought strikes me as I read some of them.

How many people with such opinions call themselves christian.

ah anathema... nothing like it....

Fatboy.

28064212

Degsy wrote:

The majority of the beggars i see at the top of o'connel street are romanian gypsies.These are professional beggars,who,according to an article in teh sunday world make thousands of euro a week and have huge palace-like houses back home.

Not exactly reliable reporting.

stepbar

FranknFurter wrote:

Okay, but that was not my question.
Simply put, you said you wouldnt give money to somone you considered was going to spend it on drink and/or drugs. Implying that you would to somone who in your opinion was not.

My questionwas how is it you tell if the person will or wont.
Surely, given that you said that you must have some criteria you use if you really domake that judgment?

b

How about seeing them piss outside my apt door? or not being able to stand up, falling all over the place. Some of them even manage to stagger up the street, one lad is so pissed he gets the cars at the traffic lights and has the paw out looking for money. This happens every evening without fail. Most other evenings I see a gang of them clutching cans of cider talking ****e to each other. The one evening I did pass them by I nearly got done in the face with a glass thrown by a stupid drunk ****. Would yer man have paid my hospital bills had it been implanted in my face? Dont think so.... I think its fairly easy to know the difference, they already are pissed / have the can in their hand and are well on the way. Take a walk up Aungier St and down around christchurch and ull see what im talking about.

And as for the lads on drugs they are too spaced out to know whats goin on, thank god I havent seen to many round the area to date. As a previous poster said giving them money wont solve anything, I dont know how anybody could try and defend behaviour like that. As Ive said before they must have little value on life.

dbnavan

I remember some years back my grandfather had given me a fiver for my birthday and my aunt brought me in to town to get myself something, this is going back 15....maybe almost 20 years. Anyway I get off the train at tara St, with a fiver in my pocket, thinking I was rich......when I saw two kids sitting outside the trainstation looking like something out of Annie begging, I turned to my aunt at 8 years of age, and said they need the money more then I do, and I put the fiver into their bucket, as I walked away I looked back an saw a man come out of the pub, lower his cap from his head while the kids tipped the contents of there bucket into his hat and he went back into the pub. From that day on I have never given on the street. Not even baught a Big Issue.

With the welfare system in this country there is no excuse for anyone to beg on the Streets, I am not saying welfare allows one to live comfortable, far from it, but I know first had about making ends meet on Welfare, when I had to.

xzanti

What pisses me off are the women who bring small babies out into the street for sympathy.. sitting in a p1ssy blanket all day on the ground is no place for a baby.. Surely they must have someone who could take the baby while they beg??

dbnavan

xzanti wrote:

What pisses me off are the women who bring small babies out into the street for sympathy.. sitting in a p1ssy blanket all day on the ground is no place for a baby.. Surely they must have someone who could take the baby while they beg??

I am sure they do, but the baby is for effect emotional blackmail.....really makes me :mad:

masterK

What is the situation with the women and children who beg? They are hardly homeless are they? I often wondered where the went in the evenings, I presume they stay in hostels.

stepbar

Dragan wrote:

No imagine that your wife leaves you for your brother, and takes the kids that you have worked 7 day weeks to support and you never get to see them again because they do a runner, or imagine you put everything you have into a company only to lose it all, or imagine your daughter is raped and murdered and she was all you had in the world so you do some "street justice" and when you get out you have nothing.

I cannot believe some people are coming on here and defending this crap, any man / woman that does out and drinks themselves to death deserve what they get. Theres no excuse no matter what the circumstances is. Are you advising that we should all go out and hit the bottle at the first sign of despair in out lives? Cause that is what you seem to be doing. You need to cop ur self on if you think this is right behaviour. They'll get no symathy from me. I take a drink. I can handle it. I had my ups and downs in life. But theres 2 things I would never do, kill myself and drink myself to an early grave. Again Ill say it they must have little value on life.

FillSpectre

masterK wrote:

What is the situation with the women and children who beg? They are hardly homeless are they? I often wondered where the went in the evenings, I presume they stay in hostels.

Why would they not be homeless? There are lots of people who live in B&Bs are homeless.
At last single men are not being left on the housing lists

HelterSkelter

antSionnach wrote:

Do you know what I cant understand at all? How can they be so poor if they get social welfare. They must get social welfare? Im talking specifically about the ones who arent junkies etc. And doesnt everyone get a free house or something?

You don't get social welfare if you have no address, bit of a catch 22 if you're genuinely homeless.

thebaz

stepbar wrote:

I cannot believe some people are coming on here and defending this crap, any man / woman that does out and drinks themselves to death deserve what they get. Theres no excuse no matter what the circumstances is. Are you advising that we should all go out and hit the bottle at the first sign of despair in out lives? Cause that is what you seem to be doing. You need to cop ur self on if you think this is right behaviour. They'll get no symathy from me. I take a drink. I can handle it. I had my ups and downs in life. But theres 2 things I would never do, kill myself and drink myself to an early grave. Again Ill say it they must have little value on life.

are you for real ?
if you are , i don't think you should be preaching on about values for life, based on your cold selfish attitude .

HelterSkelter

Attractive Nun wrote:

I'm no saint when it comes to charity, I'll admit that, and to be honest I think you need a pretty unfortunate series of events in this day and age to have any sort of legitimate excuse as to why you have to live on the street. But some of the comments here 'in favour' of the homeless just stink of superiority.

It's a lot easier than you think. I know a guy in his 50's. His wife has just divorced him. The house they owned was worth €400,000. Guess what he gets, €50,000, even though he paid at least half the value of the house, what a joke. His wife has a better job than him and earns a lot more. And the judge gave him 8 weeks to leave the house. So now he is looking at renting for the rest of his life. He's ok for now but what happens if he gets sick and can't work anymore. That 50 grand will be used up in no time on rent & bills. He could very easily end up sleeping on the street if he has a bad run of luck.

Hobbes

Degsy wrote:

The majority of the beggars i see at the top of o'connel street are romanian gypsies.These are professional beggars,who,according to an article in teh sunday world make thousands of euro a week and have huge palace-like houses back home.

wow 52,000 a year (Tax free I bet too), and a Mansion too you say?! Good thing they make so much money then.

:rolleyes:

Stupidist post ever. You not think for a second and work out the numbers.

Lets say they beg 7 days a week. That means they would have to be making 142 euro a day. Although thats just for one thousand. You said "Thousands". Lets keep it reasonable at 2,000. Thats 284 euros a day they have to make.

So lets say they work from 9 in the morning (as not many to beg at that time) to 8 at night. Give them an hours lunch break and 30 mins for toilet/tea breaks. Thats 11.5 hours. So thier hourly take would have to be making about 26 euros an hour. That means they need to making around 2 euros every 5 minutes in order to keep up.

And all this for just sitting around doing nothing. Very impressive.

And if they just worked normal hours (generally 8 hour days) then they would make 35.5 euros an hour.

fuk minimum wage. Lets all do that.

Although after pointing out how stupid it is to claim these people are "making thousands" I am sure some people will still believe it.