Garda are nowhere to be seen while city center is overrun by crime and drugs

Jimmy McGill wrote: »

Why is that does anybody know? I know it's only usually one Garda that stands there like a statue or looking at their phone but it seems like a bit of a waste of a wage bill to have them there 24/7 when it could be used clean up the streets in the inner city

I've no idea. The defence forces should be put to use here in Ireland like on the continent. The likes of Rome, Berlin and Amsterdam have soldiers at all their landmarks and train stations. It wouldn't do any harm to have it here, the defence forces arent doing much else.

Katelyn Immense Yard wrote: »

Funnily enough me too. I got the Luas from Cabra to Dominick, walked over to Pearse St, and did the same in reverse. I somehow managed to avoid being murdered. Some of the posters in this thread appear to be afraid of their own shadow.

We're laughing but it's actually quite sad. A lot of these lads are ill equipped to deal with living in a city, even one as safe as Dublin.

I saw a thread on reddit recently where one of these delicate little flowers was advising a US visitor to avoid Dublin as it was too dangerous. The chap said he was coming from Detroit. I kid you not.

I was born in Dublin and spent the last 15 years living abroad in a number of cities, including some mentioned in the thread earlier. I returned to Dublin 6 months ago to raise a family.

Wherever inequality exists, social tension and crime will exist. This is particularly acute in cities. All cities have crime. However Dublin has some idiosyncrasies in this regard that I have not experienced elsewhere.

1: Random and senseless acts of aggression and violence.

Unlike crime in the centers of other capital cities( pick-pocketing etc) which quite obviously have benefits to the perpetrator( money), I have witnessed multiple incidents of senseless aggression that would appear to be of no obvious benefit to the perpetrator.
Leaving the Dart station there was a guy standing in the middle of the road,shouting at the top of his lungs, stopping traffic and challenging passers by to a fight, frightening the hell out of people. A guy on the quays was drinking a bottle of coke and lobbed the half full bottle across the road at a random stranger walking to work. Leaving a playground with my son in the buggy and a guy booted a football at myself and my wife to get a reaction.

None of these incidents are major in isolation but create an uneasy atmosphere that I just haven't experienced in any other city I live in.

2: Junkies.

In the whole time I lived abroad Junkies were not a thing. Here junkies, and the negative issues they bring, are ever present in Dublin city. I asked a city planner friend why the Abbey street area was so run down and he answered matter of factly that they cant gentrify it because there's 'two methadone clinics in the area'. A friend opened a cafe near Dublin city council building but was advised he needn't bother put tables outside because there's a methadone clinic around the corner. In the middle of Dun Laoghaire there's a clinic that apparently is treating people 'from as far away as Wicklow'.
Whether these issues are blown out of proportion or not is irrelevant. The question is why are they a front and center issue here and not in cities elsewhere?

Either there's a vast vast amount more heroine addicts in Dublin than in all the cities I've lived in( doubtful) , or we treat them differently in Dublin( more likely) i.e by centralizing the methadone distribution. I'd love to understand this issue more.

3: Incessant begging from people who clearly aren't homeless.

Although Dublin clearly has a homelessness problem, there also appears to be a general attitude from people that they can just sit on the ground for a while and collect some cash. I've seen one on an iPhone. Sitting outside a cafe last Sunday for lunch we were approached 5+ times in a 1 hour period by people asking for money.

The random aggression, the junkies, the incessant begging all contribute to create a general run down feeling in the center of the city that, from my experience, appears to be a unique feature of this city center.

Spent Friday evening and most of Saturday in the city center. Camden St, Wexford St, Georges St, Wicklow St, Exchequer, South Anne, Dawson, Iveagh Gardens, Dame Lane, Dame St areas. Again didn't notice any junkies or encounter any anti social behaviour, just people in good form enjoying the city. Met an American group outside a pub on Dame St, was their fourth time in Dublin, they were raving about the place. Went to a beer festival on the Saturday, everyone was super relaxed and well behaved.

Weird for a city supposedly overrun with drugs and crime.

CucaFace wrote: »

Fair play, you must have been the only person ever to stand on dame lane and not have junkies begging from you. I love the place for drinks in the summer, but its about 1 every 5 minutes plaguing you there.

Most of the other places you have mentioned above go into the southside more, the problems in Dublin city are really from dame lane area and north from there.

More stupid exaggeration. I spent the Tuesday and Wednesday of Cheltenham this year drinking in and smoking outside the Dame Tavern and had none of these issues.

Every time I mention somewhere I was in the city I get some nerk saying telling me that thats not where the terrifying criminality is...

abcabc123123 wrote: »

Oddly I've never had any of this stuff happen to me, despite living and working in the city for the better part of the last 15 years.

I've had potatoes thrown at me though and a kid hit me on the head with a chip last week (and then called me a paedo/****). It was harrowing stuff altogether.

ah you've a chip on your shoulder.:rolleyes:

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Add Camden Street - junky sitting on pavement every 30 metres.
Nassau Street between Suffolk Street and Merrion Square - every 30 metres.

**** sake, earlier in the thread when I said I went to Camden St I was told it was too far Southside for junkies, now there's dozens of junkies there.

Bunch of ****ing liars and fantastists.

Before the internet we'd never heard from these idiots, now they are on every forum for every city braying and crying about how terrifying the modern world is like ****ing children. Its beyond pathetic