Prime Time on state of Dublin City Center tomorrow night

Pobb

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Edinburgh

You not seen Trainspotting then?

littlemac1980

Here's another somewhat recent article about the violence in Dublin city.

It's by a Dub - I think it provides a useful perspective on this issue:

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/unprovoked-violence-on-dublins-streets-shouldnt-be-accepted-as-normal-1418023-Apr2014/

It was written before the Dublin Footballer was stabbed walking home, and the other incidents I referred to above.

It's therefore written with reference to other more contemporaneous violent incidents on the streets. Namely these:

http://www.thejournal.ie/15-year-old-girl-arrested-after-moore-street-attack-1407807-Apr2014/

http://www.thejournal.ie/gardai-investigating-st-patricks-day-dublin-video-1369754-Mar2014/

The journalist makes some interesting comments throughout:

As we all know making comments on internet sites is not going to put an end to this problem. I’ve the feeling there is a certain acceptance that street violence is just a part of life in Dublin city, that it ‘goes with the territory’ so to speak.

Certainly muggings, pick pockets, fights and drunken disorderly are common urban issues in most cities … but unprovoked violent assaults? Is that our domain?

He summarises his position in the last paragraph:

Dublin is a great city and, despite the problems I’ve mentioned, it’s still a relatively safe one. I think it suffers badly from a perception problem, a feeling it is more hostile and dangerous than it actually is. However, there’s no doubt that street violence is an issue in Dublin and we are all potential victims of it as long as we accept it as being part and parcel of life in our city.

littlemac1980

Ah sure never-mind sure everything's fine... :rolleyes:

alastair

devildriver wrote: »

I visited Dublin a few months ago for the first time in a long time and it's got noticeably worse for the amount of scummers around the place daytime and nighttime.

I moved out of Dublin in 2005 having spent 7 years there and it could just be the rose-tinted glasses of memory but to me it seems a lot worse than it was. Maybe it's a side-effect of the recession /austerity / whatever of the last few years, I don't know.

Was it a sunny day when you visited? The sun brings out the junkies faster than a dunnes bag of zimmos. At night-time there's far fewer junkies about, but perhaps it was another type of scummer you saw at night?

Pobb

I had to fight off two pickpockets (one a hooker in full drag!) on Gran Via in Madrid one night.

In Berlin, my mate got smashed over the head with a bottle while we were standing outside a bar.

In Marseilles some local Arabs took offence to a few of us sitting near them on a train so we had to navigate out way out of that one which wasn't pleasant.

There was no sign of police during any of these instances and none of them would put me off going to these places again because I accept that in every city where there are millions of people, there is always going to be some level of violent street crime. From personal experiences, Dublin is safer than a lot of other cities in Europe. You can keep convincing yourselves that it's a cross between Baltimore in The Wire and Baghdad, but I'll just use my own experiences to allow me to walk around the place in peace.

alastair

littlemac1980 wrote: »

Ah sure never-mind sure everything's fine... :rolleyes:

The fact of the matter is that Dublin crime is lower than it was in the 80's and 90's. Pretending there's been some recent upsurge is all well and good, if you want to get outraged, and pretend those who don't agree with you are okay with crime, but it's somewhat undermined by it's not being the case.

There are some in this thread who conflate visibility of junkies with some manner of threat, and who equate teens in tracksuits with 'scummers'. Equally there are some on this thread who seemingly believe that the Guards are keystone cops, unable to respond to any crime in the city. They're well off the mark on all of the above, and painting a city in crisis doesn't convince any more, even if you erect a great big straw man 'of crime apologists'.

devildriver

alastair wrote: »

Was it a sunny day when you visited? The sun brings out the junkies faster than a dunnes bag of zimmos. At night-time there's far fewer junkies about, but perhaps it was another type of scummer you saw at night?

Yes it was a nice sunny day in fact.

And as previous posters have said there's a lot about this that's down to perception. Perhaps all of those groups of tracksuited teenagers to thirty-somethings hanging around O'Connell St are nice people but to be honest they don't LOOK like they are.

I was in London last week and while I'm not as familiar with the city as I am with Dublin I just didn't see the same level of "asbo-looking" characters as you can see in our capital city centre.

miamee

drumswan wrote: »

Wait, wait, are you saying we should be working to eliminate violent crime entirely from Dublin? That we shouldnt be looking to be relatively safe, but instead carry out some grand utopian social experiment to eliminate violence from human nature in this particular city, even though this has not been achieved anywhere else, and we in fact have lower crime rates that most other capitals?

What planet are some of you people from?

This conversation is bordering on the absurd now. The Walter Mitty, Think-Of-The-Children brigade on here would be comical if they didnt get a vote equal to the rest of us.

alastair wrote: »

Did you see anyone claim that any level of crime was acceptable? The claim was that crime was at an elevated crisis level, as evident in the crime rate figures. Neither of which is actually the case.

Yeah, the guy just above you there thinks that it's just fine to achieve relative safety but not complete safety. That implies to me that he'd expect to eliminate some, but not all, crime. Realistically, it's not very likely but I'd rather aim for zero crime than 'Ah sure you'll be grand so long as you don't get in anyone's way".

alastair wrote: »

How does that work exactly? We're talking about Dubliners here - your fellow citizens, even if they're addicts or wear a tracksuit or whatever. Where are you 'clearing them' to, and for what exactly?

I have no problem with Dubliners or anyone else who goes about their day, minding their own business. When they start to intimidate or impinge upon other people going about their business, then they are a problem and need to move along, get a life, get a job, get clean and stop being a nuisance. Realistically, they need somewhere to go to achieve these things and we verge then onto the problems of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, homelessness, child services, etc. which all need a serious overhaul in this country (not just in Dublin).

I understand that zero crime in unlikely but I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to get as close as possible to it. Otherwise you are saying that some level of crime, other than zero, is actually acceptable.

Ole Rodrigo

Littlemac1980 - you have refer to incidents that have happened over the past year, yet from the tone of your posts - which I presume you are gleaning from whatever tabloid media you allow yourself to be whipped into a frenzy by - you imply these are regular occurrences and are the dominant experience of the city center. They are not. The dominant experience of the city center is tourists, shoppers and workers..all going about their business peacefully. That incident with the night worker on O'Connell street and the St Patricks day parade are local teenagers running amok which is usually annoying when it happens. Its not to excuse it by any token, but it doesn't happen as often as you or the rags you quote imply and its certainly not limited to the city center, as the residents of Howth, Shankhill, Portmarnock etc will testify during the warm weather. They are usually from families hit disproportionately hard by the austerity measures of the past few years. A measure of empathy would be a better reaction in most cases tbh.

KermitDeFrog - you make some valid points about the lack of basic amenities in the North City Center. Things like benches and bins would go along way to making the place a bit more civil, but work is being done in that regard and it is improving. Everyday tourists pass by my house - none are intimidated, all seem pretty excited to be here. Ireland has had a bad time of things during this recession and visitors are more aware of this and its effects on services than we might credit them with. Maybe they are marveling at how much we have just taken on the chin and our collective pain seems to be limited to expression on internet forums and Joe Duffy, but is also manifest in the junkies and undesirables around the place. Did you know many of these come from Eastern Europe too ? They were laborers during the good times.

Junkies and alcos - we live in a culture of intoxication and it will take a long time for Ireland to temper its reputation for drunkenness. Some folks who come from more modest means cant indulge themselves like others can without falling of the social ladder. In my life I've witnessed many people get away with serial over-indulgence by virtue of comfortable circumstances. Much of the attitude towards junkies seems so hypocritical in that regard.

Of all the city center detractors, who has volunteered a few hours with the Simon community to help with homeless ? Who has reached out to neighbors to join together to tackle problems of litter or dog poop ? Who among professional workers has volunteered to talk at inner city and working class schools on the value of education in a world being turned on its head by the digital revolution ? Who has researched our lobbying system to affect some change ? No - half baked, lazy comments on the internet and calls to Joe Duffy are about as much as people can be bothered with.

alastair

miamee wrote: »

I have no problem with Dubliners or anyone else who goes about their day, minding their own business. When they start to intimidate or impinge upon other people going about their business, then they are a problem and need to move along, get a life, get a job, get clean and stop being a nuisance. Realistically, they need somewhere to go to achieve these things

'Somewhere'? Where's that then? Where do you want to send the jobseekers and 'nuisance-makers'? Somewhere with soap, by the sounds of it, but then, by the sounds of it, you're simply engaged in a good old fashioned attempt at demonising people who's main 'crime' is not that they're actually anti-social, but rather that they're not the same as you.

miamee wrote: »

and we verge then onto the problems of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, homelessness, child services, etc. which all need a serious overhaul in this country (not just in Dublin).

I understand that zero crime in unlikely but I don't think there is anything wrong with trying to get as close as possible to it. Otherwise you are saying that some level of crime, other than zero, is actually acceptable.

Zero crime is not unlikely - it's an impossibility.

Kermit.de.frog

I'm embarrassed by the attitude some have to Dublin. Dublin is a kip. I am not afraid to say it even though I don't like saying it.

And something needs to be done about it. End of. There is no debate to be had. Everyone knows this except the paranoid deluded posters here who live in the city center who are clearly immune to what Dublin is like at this stage or just don't care.

"Ah sure it's grand"

Such low standards for your own city. I can not understand that mentality.

Jumboman

alastair wrote: »

The fact of the matter is that Dublin crime is lower than it was in the 80's and 90's. Pretending there's been some recent upsurge is all well and good, if you want to get outraged, and pretend those who don't agree with you are okay with crime, but it's somewhat undermined by it's not being the case.

Again you have to take any statistics put out by the government with a pinch of salt. Those statistics do not reflect the reality on the ground.

To say that crime in Dublin is now lower than it was in the 1990s is laughable in the extreme.

Kermit.de.frog

If their ambition for Dublin is to be like some second rate medium sized British city like Glasgow or Birmingham or Sheffield then Dublin is doing fine.

tricky D

Thread has run its course; closed.