The city centre and nearby outer areas are not safe currently. I do my best to avoid it where possible - although walking to and from work in the city means I that get to see what goes on 5 days a week.
Two of my colleagues have had the terrible misfortune of happening upon dead bodies in one of our doorways - both drug-related deaths, separate occasions. Grim.
One of the security people that lock up was attacked by a fella armed with a knife and totally out of his mind - only for the fact that the security company has a rule that two people have to be present to shut the place up, it could have been a lot worse. The attacker - as far as I know - was charged but never went to prison.
There is a serious lack of Garda presence on the streets - no real beat walking - and what there is out on the streets totally ineffectual and/or apathetic. Cops are just walking past incidents in broad daylight.
How your man is still getting away with the open drug dealing on Barrack St. day and night is beyond me.
I am, by no means, a shrinking wallflower and I grew up in a less salubrious parts of the Northside but if I'm in town at night for a few pints or a gig nowadays then I'll get a bus or taxi home whereas 5 years ago I would have walked without a second thought - no matter what time it was or what state I was in. The odds of getting in a scrap or stabbed for no reason haven't been this high since the 1990s.
