The State of O'Connell St

Phoebas

January wrote: »

Ring DCC.

Ring the council to get someone out to remove a syringe?

No recession in that city.

Phoebas

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

They need a Garda on each entrance to the boardwalk to keep these guys off it, anyone with glazed eyes not admitted.

Isn't the boardwalk where the Gardai send them?

wicklowwonder

RossFixxxed wrote: »

Every single day this happens. O'Connell street.

How do I get this safely removed?

There are syringes in every western city in the world by the way. Especially every capital... It's not just a Dublin problem.

RossFixxxed

wicklowwonder wrote: »

There are syringes in every western city in the world by the way. Especially every capital... It's not just a Dublin problem.

I know, but these are on the main footpath of the main street. It's still awful even if other places do it.

Was concerned for safety of others. Happens daily lately. Just venting!

Sorry about the title, posted in AH originally, can't amend on mobile.

Darkglasses

Kick it to hell.

Esoteric_

Saw two syringes on the middle of Henry Street a few days ago, also with blood on them. It was a sunny day, kids and parents milling around the street, and like you OP, I was worried that a kid might step on it. Two Gardaí happened to be walking by, so I told them (no way in hell I'd pick up a dirty syringe myself without gloves), they got rid of them straight away.

I'm surprised the Gardaí you spoke to didn't care. It's a pretty serious issue. :-/

It might seem like a really obvious thing to say, but if anyone decides to remove syringes from public places themselves, please don't just throw them in the bin. Needles need to be disposed of correctly otherwise some poor unfortunate council worker could end up with a needle stick injury when handling the bin

Esoteric_

Deleted User wrote: »

It might seem like a really obvious thing to say, but if anyone decides to remove syringes from public places themselves, please don't just throw them in the bin. Needles need to be disposed of correctly otherwise some poor unfortunate council worker could end up with a needle stick injury when handling the bin

Happened to a girl in my last job when somebody threw a needle into a bin in the bathroom. She pulled out the bin bag to change it, as she was carrying the bag down the stairs, she got pricked in the leg. I can only imagine how terrifying it was for her.

On that note, where would one dispose of them? Like I said, I told two Gardaí when I saw them on Henry Street, but have never picked one up before. If you pick one up on O'Connell Street for example, where the fook are you supposed to put it?

Solair

To be realistic, Dublin has a really bad heroin problem. I've lived in a few cities in Europe and Dublin & Brussels rank as the two with a very "in your face" drug problem.

I'm now starting to see staggering junkies in Cork city centre too which is really disappointing as it was always relatively OK.

We really aren't doing enough about this problem. It's been bad for as long as I remember and it seems to be getting worse not better.

I'm sorry to have to say this but I really think Dubliners have become desensitised to junkies.

I am always horrified at how in your face it is when I come back from far bigger cities to Dublin.

It's really, really bad.

For example, I was sitting outside a cafe in the area around George's St and we had to move inside due to endless harassment from wandering junkies. That really doesn't happen elsewhere and it didn't happen too often in Dublin even about 5 years ago.

Although I do remember my school having to close playing fields in the 90s due to needles! Some idiots were shooting up on a school's pitches! This was in one of Dublin's snootier southside suburbs too, not the city centre!

It's getting a lot worse and very rapidly from what I can see and very little is being done about it.

From what I can see, apart from a few city centre (from various Irish cities) TDs the majority of the Dail is oblivious to the problem and nothing happens to resolve it.

chinwag

O'Connell St around the Spire area has really gone to the dogs with drug addicts 'floating' around after they get their 'fix', it can be quite threatening for people going about their business. Apart from the human tragedy, it must be an eye opener for tourists coming here to witness this sight on our main street. I would think that Dublin's drug problem must rank as one of the worst of major cities (although recently on a visit to Cork I found the problem there quite depressing too).

Esoteric_

Plenty of major cities have drug problems. It's not primarily a problem in Dublin.

The Seychelles, for example, is a place I'm going to in October. Beautiful, tranquil, scenic country, with a massive heroin problem. You might not get junkies out on the streets, but the problem still exists.

I don't get the rants that people go on about Dublin and junkies. I saw plenty of junkies when I lived in Limerick, and a lot more when I lived near Dundalk. Dundalk was probably the worst I saw for it, actually. It's really not a Dublin thing.

mattjack

Solair wrote: »

To be realistic, Dublin has a really bad heroin problem. I've lived in a few cities in Europe and Dublin & Brussels rank as the two with a very "in your face" drug problem.

I'm now starting to see staggering junkies in Cork city centre too which is really disappointing as it was always relatively OK.

We really aren't doing enough about this problem. It's been bad for as long as I remember and it seems to be getting worse not better.

I'm sorry to have to say this but I really think Dubliners have become desensitised to junkies.

I am always horrified at how in your face it is when I come back from far bigger cities to Dublin.

It's really, really bad.

For example, I was sitting outside a cafe in the area around George's St and we had to move inside due to endless harassment from wandering junkies. That really doesn't happen elsewhere and it didn't happen too often in Dublin even about 5 years ago.

Although I do remember my school having to close playing fields in the 90s due to needles! Some idiots were shooting up on a school's pitches! This was in one of Dublin's snootier southside suburbs too, not the city centre!

It's getting a lot worse and very rapidly from what I can see and very little is being done about it.

From what I can see, apart from a few city centre (from various Irish cities) TDs the majority of the Dail is oblivious to the problem and nothing happens to resolve it.

Some of the Drugs Services have Outreach teams in the city that will recover and dispose of used works in the city .I think DCC will as well.

Dublin has a heroin problem but its not particularly bad... last figure I seen for the whole country was about 21000 heroin addicts, people maintained on methadone and people detoxing.

A lot of addicts using intravenously are offered proper bins to dispose used works and do actually take them.

Where I work has outreach workers that are out from 7.30am and do a specific circuit recovering old barrels and spikes and will respond to calls from the public within reason.

The last stats I seen about heroin use in Dublin were saying it was declining slightly and had climbed a little bit nationally.

Solair

The problem in Cork seems to be suddenly happening. It wasn't that bad until a few years ago as heroin had largely been kept out of the city. Clearly that's no longer the case.

I've had junkies wander out in front if me in the car and stuff like that in recent months which I've really never encountered in Cork before that.

The only big difference in Cork is that unlike Dublin the city centre is relatively packed tight with retail where as Dublin has a lot more lonely areas which can become a bit scary when colonised by junkies.

Also Cork has very little in terms of rough housing projects in the city centre where as Dublin has quite a few right in the very middle of shopping / tourism areas.

I think that's possibly why it's very, very visible in Dublin and more of a suburban 'sink estate' issue elsewhere (especially UK cities)

Dublin also suffered very badly from an abandonment of the city centre in the 50s-90s in terms of anyone actually living there. Cork didn't do that quite as dramatically and it tends to have a more liveable city centre which maybe keeps a lid on things.

It'll take a lot of time and planning and drug treatment programmes to resolve the 50+ years of damage to Dublin City Centre.

The North Inner City in particular was destroyed by bad planning. There's a tract between Connolly Station to the east and the edge of Stoneybatter to the west that's just completely screwed up.

Areas like the IFSC and Stoneybatter (parts of) show what can be done with a bit of effort and good planning!

hufpc8w3adnk65

I'm from Cork and haven't really seen any evidence bar an odd spoon discarded in an alley but where about the posters here seen the junkies in cork?as someone with kids id like too have an idea where they gather too keep my family away if possible

The Hill Billy

Threads merged.

tHB

wattlendaub

Lux23 wrote: »

What we need is a heavy Garda presence, the minute the Guards turn up they generally tend to move on but you could be on Talbot Street for 20 minutes and not see a cop, it's ridiculous. It's odd but I have only seen beggars questioned twice in all the years I've lived in Dublin city centre, should be zero tolerance for panhandling.

I see guards moving along beggars/panhandlers/homeless people on a near daily basis, if that's any sort of consolation!

nudger

Where I work we have a yard that opens out into a lane, the thoughtful junkies throw the used syringes over the wall so no one walking in the lane get stuck.

Our maintenance guys had to put up a fine net over the yard.

cloud493

I don't know if anyone else saw on Tuesday, I was on Talbot street where the samaritan headquarters are, and this woman who'd without knowing I'd say was homeless, pulled her pants down and started urinating in the street. Never seen anything like it.

dsmythy

Dublin, for a capital, is quite compact. Couple that with centralised drug addiction services then it's inevitable the problem looks worse than it is. That's not to take away from the problem that exists. My most recent sight was in a fast food place in the Ilac Centre. Beside me was a guy shooting up. He spilt some of his blood on the seat and got a worker to clean it up for him. He was very apologetic but still......

Solair

MrMac84 wrote: »

I'm from Cork and haven't really seen any evidence bar an odd spoon discarded in an alley but where about the posters here seen the junkies in cork?as someone with kids id like too have an idea where they gather too keep my family away if possible

I've mostly spotted them in around the bus station area. Other than that, totally at random locations in the city centre.

It's still DRASTICALLY less of an issue than Dublin though. I'm more concerned that its starting rather than that I'm being plagued with them in Cork.

It's becoming a bit problematic to sit at outside tables in Dublin that's not an issue in Cork

...

Other cities in Europe have an issue too but I think Dublin really needs to drop the complacent attitude to it. Yes, the layout makes it a bit worse but the underlying problem is social deprivation and inadequate treatment services and lack of joined up thinking with the judiciary. They need to use some kind of powers of compulation to get these people back healthy again.

If you were seriously mentally And a risk to yourself and others you'd be 'sectioned'. I don't see why someone who is a drug addict can be considered any differently to that. They're in a position where they can be cured fairly easily too with the right sort of rehabilitation, monitoring and support.

It's tragic to see them roaming around in a daze and robbing to pay for an addiction.

Only solution that might work is the treat them as ill and get them off drugs and absolutely go after the dealers with enormous funancial penalties and long, long custodial sentences. They should be put of of business - permanently.

You'd clear out loads of wasted prison space that's tied up with petty, drug-driven crime and you'd drastically reduce the load on the Gardai too as it would reduce minor crime.

Then if the demand died off - gangland would be solved / drastically reduced in size.

We are just not doing enough to solve this!

mattjack

Solair wrote: »

I've mostly spotted them in around the bus station area. Other than that, totally at random locations in the city centre.

It's still DRASTICALLY less of an issue than Dublin though. I'm more concerned that its starting rather than that I'm being plagued with them in Cork.

Mod note: No need for bolded text unless you wish to make your post look like a mod warning.

It's becoming a bit problematic to sit at outside tables in Dublin that's not an issue in Cork

...

Other cities in Europe have an issue too but I think Dublin really needs to drop the complacent attitude to it. Yes, the layout makes it a bit worse but the underlying problem is social deprivation and inadequate treatment services and lack of joined up thinking with the judiciary. They need to use some kind of powers of compulation to get these people back healthy again.

You cannot force people into treatment , you couldn't begin to imagine the trauma some addicts have experienced that has lead them to addiction.
Often addiction is their escape and that's as good as it gets for them.

We do have inadequate treatment services , but to get somebody from being in addiction to being clean is an incredibly difficult task.
Very few treatment centres will take you unless you are on methadone, to get on a clinic is difficult enough and in order to get into treatment you must get down to about thirty mls or so of methadone.

Aftercare is very important for any recovering individual and often this means supported housing , ongoing treatment or counselling sometimes for quite an extended time.

To get down to that prescribed dose often means attending stabilisation courses or you may reach it in prison.

Acknowledging too that some addicts are polydrug users ... using heroin , tablets , snow blow is important and also remembering they may often be suffering from mental ill from drug use or being using drugs to self medicate.


If you were seriously mentally And a risk to yourself and others you'd be 'sectioned'. I don't see why someone who is a drug addict can be considered any differently to that. They're in a position where they can be cured fairly easily too with the right sort of rehabilitation, monitoring and support.


It's tragic to see them roaming around in a daze and robbing to pay for an addiction.

Only solution that might work is the treat them as ill and get them off drugs and absolutely go after the dealers with enormous funancial penalties and long, long custodial sentences. They should be put of of business - permanently.

The ethos that most low threshold agencies operate under is a harm reduction
model ... what that means is that I accept you as you are , but will do my best to keep you safe and if that means giving you clean needles and works , so be it.Again you cannot force to get off drugs , it just wont work..

You'd clear out loads of wasted prison space that's tied up with petty, drug-driven crime and you'd drastically reduce the load on the Gardai too as it would reduce minor crime.

Then if the demand died off - gangland would be solved / drastically reduced in size.

We are just not doing enough to solve this!

The treatment and drug services do their best , what hampers them is lack of funding.

Just to go back to the pic. that was snapped by the OP , that looks like an individual 2ml barrel ... no spike , no water , no citric , no tourniquet and nothing to cook up in.
Very few addicts would just have " a barrel" , lots either dispose of the syringe properly , either returning to exchanges or using proper bins in accommodation .Some will put the used works in beer or soft drink cans or others will bend over the spike to destroy it.That barrel may have been an accidental drop.

FreudianSlippers

cloud493 wrote: »

I don't know if anyone else saw on Tuesday, I was on Talbot street where the samaritan headquarters are, and this woman who'd without knowing I'd say was homeless, pulled her pants down and started urinating in the street. Never seen anything like it.

I saw a homeless guy full on shít against a wall at Parnell Square East. No joke. About 3 in the afternoon, sunny day, full view of people.

Solair

I don't agree that you can't force addicts to attend treatment. There's no way you could do it with the current underfunded services, but with a properly resources system you could.

Where someone's up for a drug induced petty crime, that should simply have an option of a) treatment or b) prison

We're neither putting the resources in not are we being tough enough.

I feel sorry for people who have had it tough, been traumatised and ended up on hard drugs. However, if they're a danger to themselves and to members of the public the state has a duty to step in.

Its neither putting in the resources nor is it putting in the judicial policies to achieve a public safety improvement.

At the end of the day, you really cannot have a situation where people are being robbed, harassed, burgled or assaulted by people off their faces on 'gear'.

You also can't have a situation where dealers destroy vulnerable people's lives by pushing this stuff.

I just think we've allowed a situation to get totally out of control and its resulting in both petty crime and really dangerous violent crime.

You know Ireland's now at the top of the scale for gun-related deaths in the EU (even though our overall murder rate is low) and almost all of that is attributable to the drug trade.

I just do not agree that people have a human right to get drugged up to their eyeballs and put the rest of society at risk by doing so.

The problem is not bring solved and its now going on on a big scale for 30+ years.

mikemac1

Odysseus wrote: »

OClients can get a letter off staff, if they attend the clinic more than 3-4 times a week to get a bus pass off the CWO.

Ah Ballyer, there are times of the day when you can sit on the bus and people watch and there are more welfare passes then fare payers getting on.

No wonder Dublin Bus are broke!

Free travel was a great idea but it has expanded to include young, able bodied clients of the addiction services.
Able to run for a bus but not pay for a bus ticket

Anyone who used the 40 (old 78A) has come across the boyos, top deck at the back.
People don't respect what they get for free.


Ah the 78A, that bus was infamous around Dublin :pac:

mattjack

sorry bout the bolded posting, wasnt meant to be disrespectful to Solair or try make my posts look like Mod posts.
I,m ****e at quoteing in posts.

Carry on posting
Matthew

Dyr

mikemac1 wrote: »

Ah Ballyer, there are times of the day when you can sit on the bus and people watch and there are more welfare passes then fare payers getting on.

No wonder Dublin Bus are broke!

Free travel was a great idea but it has expanded to include young, able bodied clients of the addiction services.
Able to run for a bus but not pay for a bus ticket

Anyone who used the 40 (old 78A) has come across the boyos, top deck at the back.
People don't respect what they get for free.


Ah the 78A, that bus was infamous around Dublin :pac:

Funny how junkies can find the readies to feed that habit every day but not the few bob to get on a bus.

The welfare/laminated cornflakes box buss pass needs to be scrapped pronto.

cloud493

And I just got nearly mugged on O'Conell street bout an hour ago. They really need to sort it out.

wicklowwonder

cloud493 wrote: »

And I just got nearly mugged on O'Conell street bout an hour ago. They really need to sort it out.

Just got nearly mugged.... Did someone step in or did a junkie brush against you?

mattjack

cloud493 wrote: »

And I just got nearly mugged on O'Conell street bout an hour ago. They really need to sort it out.

Did you make a report to the Gardai , at the very least you may prevent somebody being attacked , it may add to statistics and there may be a better allocation of resources to the City Centre , CCTV may also help catch whover nearly mugged you too.

cloud493

As in, I'm standing just outside easons waiting for my friend and two lads come up

'Here have you got a smoke?
No
Have you got a few quid for a hostel I'm not a druggie honest
No
Give us your ****ing wallet and your phone or we'll stick a knife in you
No'

He then squares up to me, but my mate arrives, and we just walk away.