By Fran McNulty
Prime Time
On a dark and dirty side street, a man in his early 40s stood quietly, with his
face and body pointed into a tight corner.
He was polite, wearing clean clothes, and carrying a bag from a well-known
sports retailer. He was also high and smoking crack cocaine.
It was barely 9am on a Wednesday in September, and Dublin city centre was
buzzing with drug users, many on their way to the GPO to collect social welfare
payments before scoring off drug dealers dotted along O'Connell Street and the
area around it.
"Do you want a shot of it?" the man asked, putting out his hand to offer his
crack pipe.
"Itâs crack," he said. "Youâd like it."
The tiny, white piece of crack cocaine â a "rock", as itâs known in the
dark and lonely world of drug addiction that now besets the capital â cost
the man â¬20, he told Prime Time.
The lane is riddled with used needles, cigarette lighters and other waste
generated by the people who use it to get high, in the shadows, mere metres
from Irelandâs most famous street.
"Do you know what Iâll do? Iâll give you a rock now and wait until you see
what it tastes like," the man said.
His proffer roundly rejected, the man lit up and sheltered from the breeze as
the flames rose from his crack pipe.
OâConnell St is a beautiful thoroughfare. Long, wide and imposing, itâs
lined with the statues of iconic figures in history, and anchored by the iconic
GPO.
It is here that the fight for Irish freedom was focused during the 1916 Rising.
Though the street is ostensibly Irelandâs Champs-Ãlysées, it is a shadow of
its former self. Due to a bitter planning row, several properties on one side
lie idle. Vast sections of the street appear abandoned and derelict.
On the face of it, OâConnell St is a busy one. The Luas criss-crosses the
street, and buses pour in and out. But, in many senses, it is a liminal space
â somewhere people just pass through.
That is a symptom of the streetâs current predicament. But it is also,
according to experts who have studied OâConnell St, part of the diagnosis.
"Itâs broken-window syndrome," Dawn Russell, of the Ana Liffey Drug Project,
told Prime Time.
"If you create an area that doesnât have a diversity of business, that
doesn't have urban artworks and nice places for people to sit and to socialise
with one another, you effectively strip all of that away," she said.
Whatever the cause, the drug problem on OâConnell St feels far more prevalent
here than in any other part of the city.
Ms Russell said that the people selling the drugs are often addicts themselves,
and many of them are personally known to her.
The dealers, she said, are often feeding their own habits or paying off family
debt. But, ultimately, the real linchpins give the area a wide berth.
"The people who are behind this are either not on this island or they're
certainly not living in the north inner city," Ms Russell said.
On another day, mid morning, two men walked up OâConnell St. For a time, they
shared the shelter of the GPOâs portico with two gardaÃ, law enforcement and
law breakers strolling side by side.
The men delayed their arrival at the top of Henry Street to avoid the glare of
the gardaÃ.
But they soon approached three men perched against a large flower box at the
top of Henry St. The drug deal was done within seconds, and the original pair
quickly scarpered down a notorious alleyway that runs parallel to OâConnell
St.
"There is always trouble and, to be honest, there are never any police around,"
said Paul Stanley, who sells flowers under the Spire.
Five generations of his family have been flower sellers â many of them set up
shop beneath Nelsonâs Pillar, the large granite column that loomed over what
was then Sackville Street until it was destroyed in March 1966.
Mr Stanley said that some of his oldest and most loyal customers donât even
come into town anymore.
"They donât feel safe, especially on OâConnell St," he said.
In his eyes, Dublin City Council should be held responsible. But so too should
the gardaÃ, whose enforcement leaves a lot to be desired, he said.
As far as Mr Stanley is concerned, TDs only make flying visits to OâConnell
St, visits he said that are akin to "drive-by shootings".
"They are only going straight through it. Thatâs it. Thatâs how bad it has
gone here," he said.
Not far from Mr Stanleyâs flower stand is The Happy Ring House, alternately
known as McDowells jewellers. One of the streetâs oldest businesses,
McDowells has felt the impact of what has unfolded on the street.
Founded in 1870, McDowells moved to its current perch on OâConnell St in
1902. Its doorman was killed during the 1916 Rising.
For Noel Kelly, who manages the jewellers, the current approach to policing is
one of the streetâs big failings.
"The main issues are loitering, vagrancy, and begging. They go unabated on the
street," Mr Kelly said.
The issues, he said, have multiplied since we have emerged from the Covid
lockdowns.
"What we see is the lack of policing on the street."
Mr Kelly believes that Dublin City Council should set up a "proper" council for
central Dublin, a kind of task force that could address the problems.
"If we donât see it from Government level or gardaÃ, we will see more
vagrancy, more loitering and we will see the problem just continue. Those
problems just wonât go away â they have to be dealt with," he said.
Despite the widespread criticism of policing in the area, gardaà do have a
consistent presence on the street. And An Garda SÃochána insists it is doing
all it can to address the issues.
As part of a special operation to deal with anti-social behaviour in the city
centre, a spokesperson noted that gardaà have made 3,336 arrests, that 6,033
charges have been brought, and that â¬3.2 million worth of illicit drugs
seized â all within the policing district that includes OâConnell St.
In a statement, Dublin City Council told Prime Time that it invests
"significant manpower and finances" in the upkeep of the street.
The council insisted that its cleaning and maintenance regime was "robust" and
added that a "deep clean" of OâConnell Bridge was planned for this month.
It also said a scheme to reduce vacancy levels and improve the "vitality and
character of the street" had been extended to 2028.
But itâs hard to get away from the simple facts: Drink- and drug-fueled
brawls are commonplace on OâConnell St. So too is open drug dealing.
Promises to open a police station on the street, meanwhile, appear to have
suffered a setback.
In April, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee announced that a new Garda Station
would be opened on the street within a few months.
Roll on six months and planning permission has just been granted to convert the
derelict building for gardaÃ.
But the force has clarified to Prime Time that it will not actually be a Garda
Station, but rather a Garda Liaison Office focusing on assisting tourists and
giving advice to the public.
While An Garda SÃochána said it was not clear when the office would be
opened, the Office for Public Works told Prime Time that works on the building
would not be completed until the first quarter of 2023, nearly a year after Ms
McEntee first mooted the proposal.
For Dawn Russell, the problems of OâConnell St are actually rooted elsewhere.
"What we see from an addiction treatment perspective and housing perspective is
that people from all over the country flood to Dublin for support, because they
donât feel welcomed in their own communities," she said.
"Itâs not right that everyone should have to congregate in the capital city
for basic health support," Ms Russell said, noting that people with addiction
issues should be supported in their own communities across the country.
The drug problem on OâConnell St feels more acute, she noted, because there
is little else happening on the street at certain times of the day.
"It happens in Temple Bar, it happens on the quays on the south side of the
city. It happens on Grafton St. But you don't see it as baldly as you do on
O'Connell St because other life is happening around it as well," she said.
Without some renewal, Mr Stanley cannot imagine a sixth generation of his
family selling flowers under the Spire.
"I donât see it myself. Unless things change or improve," he said. Iâd like
to think there will be, but God knows."
PrimeTime, 9.35pm.
RTÃ News.
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