A recent poll published by the Dublin Inquirer revealed some shocking, though not highly surprising statistics regarding perceived safety in Dublin city. According to the poll, roughly 40 percent of people do not feel safe in the city during the day, with only 20 percent of respondents claiming to feel “very” or “mostly” safe alone at night. It was also revealed that 12 percent of respondents had been robbed in the city in the preceding year, while 9 percent had been publicly threatened, 3 percent had been threatened with a weapon, 2 percent had been hit or kicked, and 1 percent reported sustaining injury from a weapon. In addition to all of this, high percentages of visitors (upwards of 80 percent on average) agreed that there were problems in the city centre, from threats and harassment to dealing and consuming drugs. Reported statistics had a 3.9 percent margin of error.
Of course, these statistics do not necessarily represent the real situation in Dublin city; they are mere perceptions. However, they are an indicator of a progressively more obvious state-of-affairs unfolding in our city, of which the city council seems rather unconcerned, stating back in 2023 that the concerns people had were “not a matter” for them to take care of. The truth is that Dublin has become a noticeably worse place in recent years – anyone who has visited the city since the lockdowns will not be able to deny this (though apparently roughly 63 percent of outsiders deliberately avoid the city). A significant portion of Dublin residents do not feel safe in their own city. Attacks and abuse on public transport are reaching incredible heights, and incidents like the Citywest riot are becoming more prevalent. Meanwhile, our Taoiseach decides that his most pressing concern is attending a climate change conference in Brazil, as if Ireland can make any substantial difference to climate change either way.
Some might suggest that these statistics are of little concern – that they are nothing more than people’s opinions of a situation, and that they should not be taken too seriously. However, perceptions matter, particularly when they concern the capital city of our country.
In a somewhat curious but nonetheless verifiable phenomenon, people’s perception of a place – even if unrealistic or exaggerated – will often directly cause that place to become more similar to the perception in question. In other words, people’s opinions of a city will actually influence the city’s development, often likening the city unto the image created by those opinions. Take the example of Los Angeles in California. The city is known widely across the United States more or less as a “dumpster fire”, to use an American turn of phrase. The city’s soft management of crime, extreme socialist politics, and general uncleanliness garnered it a reputation some time ago. However, what has happened since then is that the city has gone even further down this path, legalising cannabis in the last decade whilst its other problems have only worsened, and now what was an exaggerated caricature of the place years ago has become the city’s reality. Once people view the place a certain way, it does not take long before that view becomes reality. This is in large part because the kind of people who protest the city’s issues will not stick around to see the situation get any worse. By failing to address its own problems, and thus frightening the good people away, a city causes a direct influx of more bad people coming in and worsening the situation. A cause is only truly lost once people believe it is. When everyone with the will to complain has finally given up on their city’s problems and left, who will remain to keep any semblance of order?
And so we come back to Dublin. Seemingly, well over half of the population outside of the city would rather avoid the place if they could, while those inside the city are reporting concerningly high levels of discomfort, as well as shockingly many public incidents of assault or other abuse. No wonder then that people seem to perceive the place as a safety risk. This is a serious issue because, as shown above, cities like Dublin can often end up nose-diving, becoming worse and worse simply because people view them that way. Already, the statistics are showing us that the kind of people who would object to widespread minor crime and general uncleanness are distancing themselves from the city; how long before major chunks of the residential population do the same? And who will come to replace them when they leave?
In order to curb the problem before it becomes uncontrollable, the city council and the gardaí must actually address the safety concerns of the city’s residents. If people do not feel like they can walk outside safely in broad daylight, they will probably not stay around very long (particularly when living in Dublin is already such a costly endeavour). And so the police will find themselves dealing with more loiterers, more minor criminals, and more drug dealers and buyers coming in to replace the former law-abiding population.
In order to effectively counter this kind of vicious spiral, the authorities must essentially adopt the broken window method: all minor crimes must be severely punished in order to reduce the chances of more major crimes occurring. If the police took more interest in the smaller offences like loitering, verbal abuse, disorderly conduct, and theft, the more serious crimes like physical assault and drug abuse would go down, and would simultaneously be much easier to punish when resources are no longer being wasted on chasing minor offenders. If we want to stop Dublin from turning into Gotham city (or worse, Los Angeles), then the city’s concerns must be addressed while they are still concerns and not commonplace issues.
I almost hesitate to give an opportunity to help Micheál Martin or Simon Harris, but cleaning Dublin city would create a massive boost of support and trust in their government (things they seem in short supply of now). If they actually showed that they do care (or at least pretend to care) about people’s concerns by restoring our capital, they might find that people will be more likely to vote for them, and more likely to ignore their ludicrous mismanagement of almost every part of our country.
Unfortunately, it looks like Dublin is going to get worse before it gets better. I do not trust our current leaders to solve the problem on their own, but the reader will permit me to make some simple suggestions to them: spend money on things that matter. Arrest and punish criminals, clean the streets, dispel loiterers, and break up drug chains. Stop investing thousands in anything that begins with the word “bike”, and put the money into initiatives that will make our city pleasant to live in. Make Dublin great again, and you might just avert some serious problems before they get too big to control.
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Patrick Vincent writes from Dublin