That Marlborough St and Talbot St area are like Zombieland lately.

1st off. New York does not have 50 million people and secondly. It is not cleaned up, it just pushed the problem out to the west coast.

Look at Holland if you want to see an effective approach to dealing with Heroin addiction. Their average addict is 50+, ours are in the 20′s.

Key difference, they decriminalized it, gave it to junkies for free on condition they get treatment. They went about solving the problem. Ireland is too righteous and moral to face up to things like that.

Addicts need help and support, not to be ‘cleaned up’ as though they were debris.

Harmful herb being top of the agenda for drug arrests. Where are the arrests for heroin, cocaine, speed etc etc harmful addictive drugs. People use weed in the privacy of their own home, less addictive and harmful than alcohol. Legalise and monitor( millions to be made and will stop young people dealing with dealers who introduce them to other serious drugs and getting the drug at all/age limit) and spend more time cracking down on the extremely damaging drugs.

Tarasov is right. Addiction is an illness, a mental illness. You’d not be talking about “cleaning up” the schizophrenics, the bi-polar people. Strange, in a country where you probably have more drug addicts (and I’m including alcohol, because it’s a drug) than any other your size, you can’t wrap your minds around the concept that criminalizing an illness will never make it go away.

When are you going to clean up the diabetics?
With the number of bars in the Talbot St. area, I’d say you’re making mental illness a cottage industry.

Sometimes tough love is the best solution. Giving people sympathy and methadone and help doesn’t seem to work. People remain addicted for years and years. Stuck in perpetual poverty as a result of this so called help.

Very few of the junkies in the city are from the city centre. The geniuses in the hse have located all the walk in clinics in dublin 1 or 2. The government gives junkies free travel passes so they travel in daily from the other areas and I cause an eye sore and danger to the public. They should be dealt with in the areas they reside

Tell me about it! Standing beside the Spire waiting on my girlfriend, now I dress in track suit and runners but in no way do I look like “am I looking”

That’s all that’s ever asked of me!

The fact it made the news shows how rare it is

Citing individual incidents proves nothing. You’d have to show that there is more of such incidents per capita in Dublin than in most other cities to have a point.

The mother making the appeal made the news not the mugging.

There must be few European cities where these same people can be seen urinating and defecating in full public view – out of their heads. A tourist actually mentioned the smell of urine on the queue to me yesterday. Dublin city council have some nerve signing up to this campaign. I’ve lived in Dublin all my life and I can say it has become unsafe. Invite people to “the Grabbing” my arse. What about some public toilets (attended) for a start – then people might not pose in the streets.

Sorry, predictive text, I wrote piss in the streets, not pose.

That is very true, perhaps the insinuation is that women and children are more vulnerable – but that’s kinda silly, because plenty of males feel vulnerable and I’ve seen some pretty scary women out there too!

Chances are, if someone is kicked/stabbed to death on a Dublin street this weekend the victim will be male

When you visit Dublin chances are you’ll pass through O’Connell st.
If you’re not used to it the sight of the zombies roaming around the heart of the capital is beyond belief.
It just leaves a nasty impression, that one little part of it.
Then you go home and that’s what lingers, the clinics should be moved.

How many other cities have you lived in? Dublin is a pretty safe city in my experience, and I’ve lived in five or six other cities.

Dublin is a hell of a lot safer than 20 years ago.

It’s invariably people who don’t live in Dublin, or who have a chip on their shoulder about Dublin, who spout this stuff about it being dangerous.

Agree Conor. It’s rough and unpleasant.

Me too Petr. Dublin is my home town and the only one I have been assaulted, mugged at knife point and threatened on more than one occasion. I’ve lived the tenderloin in San Francisco and it felt much safer. Plus a much more visible no none sense police presence, none of this nonsense of negotiation with skells.

Disagree.

Grossly under-appreciated comment. I’m left contemplating where I fit on the girl/woman spectrum.

I’m not a girl, not yet a woman.

You’re always a woman to me!

You mean like, “if there’s grass on the pitch…”?

Jesus.

Ahhh Petr…

“if there’s grass on the pitch…”?

NO! I was quoting this song, jokingly! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM9-ijq3TI4

Oooooh. I didn’t realise there’d be a test!

Have you thought about seeking professional help for this paranoia?

@ Seamus. You can convince yourself of anything. You sound like your stuck there. I’m not therefore are more objective. I’ve no axe to grind or point to prove. I loved Dublin in the 80′s and early 90′s. It may have been rough then, it’s dangerous now. There’s a difference.

I dunno, I’m a woman who is short and looks a lot younger than I am.. I spend plenty of time in the city centre, only place I’ve ever felt unsafe was Marlborough St. I’ve had a lot more hassle in smaller towns outside the city centre to be honest..

Dublin was far more dangerous in the 90s, immigrants have made the city centre a lot safer by rejuvenating what were once no go areas

@ shanti.. True; I’d rather go drinkin in Dublin City than Naas, Waterford or Carrick-on-bleedin-Shannon..

I’m a young woman and I’ve walked all over Dublin, have lived in Ballymun and Finglas, I’ve walk home late at night alone for the 6 years I lived there… It really didn’t feel THAT unsafe. I think it’s not so much a dangerous city as an intimidating and slightly threatening city. People are loud and don’t hide their feelings, there’s quite a bit of litter and junkies hanging around. People can be rude. So it feels pretty dodgy, but the actual level of crime and violence is not that big compared to other cities.

There’s a small town where I grew up in Clare that I’d be more worried about walking in alone.