On tonight's Prime Time Barry Cummins investigates reports from Dublin businesses, shoppers and tourists that there has been a dramatic increase in anti-social behaviour, including drug taking and aggressive begging, around the city centre.
For decades the effect of drugs has been evident on the streets of Dublin. From the heroin epidemic of the early 1980s (and indeed to present day) to the later waves of cocaine and ecstasy to the current problem of synthetic drugs like PVP, hundreds of drug addicts walk the streets of Dublin in 2014.
It's not just addicts living in the inner city that congregate in Dublin, nor is it just those from the county borough that travel in by bus, train and Luas to get their illegal drugs.
Drug addicts are travelling from across Leinster into the capital city to get drugs.
Over the course of three days Prime Time filmed, both openly and covertly, on the streets of Dublin. We filmed in daytime because we wanted to see what exactly is going on in broad daylight.
We found one young man smoking either heroin or crack cocaine in a phone box near Temple Bar. We filmed him for over half an hour as he got high. What struck me was how many shoppers and tourists passed by, many unaware of what was going on in the phone box, others casting a glance but walking on. As a Garda patrol car happened to pass by, the man quickly left the phone box and walked up into Temple Bar.
We observed aggressive begging from Grafton Street to Henry Street, we saw people lying on the street totally unable to sit up or stand.
The current situation has led to a number of business people to speak out publicly for a report to be broadcast on Prime Time.
These people all make the point that they care deeply about Dublin, but that the city is now at a tipping point. They say the situation has never been as bad.
During our filming we did see Garda activity, we observed uniformed officers, and we saw undercover detectives searching suspected drug dealers. It appears that deals of heroin are hidden in the dealers mouth, enabling him or her to try and swallow the batch if stopped by Gardai. Sleeping tablets are stashed in a dealers waistband of their trousers or tracksuit. And that's one thing that I didn't fully grasp until I started really looking at this - many dealers are selling sleeping tablets, stolen from pharmacists or factories and sold for one or two Euro a tablet. Possessing such tablets is not necessarily a crime and while selling them can be prosecuted under illegal trading laws, not many prosecutions have yet occurred.
People working with drug addicts say that a multi disciplinary approach is needed to tackling addiction and helping people who are crying out for help. It's not just a policing issue, its not just a health issue, it's not just an education issue.
Certainly, looking at Dublin in broad daylight over the past few days, there are people in need of help.
4 million tourists are set to visit Dublin this year. Business owners say that Garda numbers are dramatically down on the period before the recession hit, but open drug use they say has grown to crisis proportions.
Join us on Thursday at 9.35pm on RTÉ One for a special Prime Time report on the Dublin we found and we filmed.
Barry Cummins is a reporter with Prime Time
