Justice Minister Helen McEntee was inundated with dozens of angry emails and letters from the public after her ‘walkabout’ in Dublin’s north inner city following a spate of violent incidents in the capital.
The overwhelming majority of correspondence was deeply critical of comments made by Ms McEntee that Dublin was a “safe city” with many criticising the lack of garda presence on the streets.
In a handwritten note, one person explained how they had been visiting Dublin’s city centre for decades.
“[I] would not entertain being out alone after 7pm,” they said, “I could easily see addicts shooting up [and] was shocked at the aggression in those gangs of feral youths loitering at so many locations.”
Another visitor to the city wrote about being asked by an “addict” why they were not wearing a bikini given that the sun was out.
Their email described how they had been called a “big fat c***” saying the abuse had been a terrible experience and that in their time in Dublin, they had not seen a single garda.
One letter said they had been walking up Talbot Street when a group of men began “aggressively firing glass bottles” at another person.
“There was absolutely NO garda presence … at this time (6.00pm on a Saturday evening) despite the recent attack on an American tourist in this vicinity.”
In an email, one member of the public said anybody who thought Dublin was safe “must be living in cloud cuckoo land”.