It is almost 8.30pm at night and Sinn Féin councillor Janice Boylan is waiting for me at the Spire.
Cllr Boylan is with her husband. She says she feels safer when she's not alone.
I ask: "Do you feel safe?"
"Here on O'Connell Street, most of the times I do," Cllr Boylan replies, adding that other streets are not as safe.
"If you were to start going down into Mary Street or Talbot Street - down where the laneways are - that's where I would become a little bit more reluctant to walk.
"I would still be nervous to go into certain parts."
We pass a lane off Marlborough Street. Three men stand idly there. This makes Cllr Boylan nervous.
The north inner city councillor warns we need not draw attention to ourselves.
The challenge in this part of the city, she says, is a "high level of anti-social activity, criminality and targeted assaults on people".
"The laneways are primarily used to drink," she adds.
"Others do be using drugs and stuff like that. It's off the beaten track."
"On the walk we see open drug dealing on doorsteps and groups of young men congregating"
We stop briefly to get a clearer view of the three men loitering up the lane.
It is at that point, Cllr Boylan explains, she would not walk past these men alone. It is nerve-racking.
"Look," she says, "you see three people just standing around up there.
"You'd be conscious if you are a female walking down there. You would be conscious of that. You would be. You'd be nervous. I would be. I'm speaking for myself.
"And, I do think that other females would feel vulnerable as well in that situation.
"It's just horrible. It makes me very sad and it makes me very angry."
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'People have stopped coming into town to socialise'
As we walk back towards Talbot Street, Cllr Boylan says anti-social behaviour is having a massive impact on locals in the north inner city.
"I have constituents who are actually terrified to come in after a certain time," she says.
"People have stopped coming into town to socialise even."
Approaching Talbot Street, there is a strong smell of cannabis. It is not the first time we have noticed it during our hour-long walk in this part of the city centre.
I comment there is a "smell of someone smoking grass".
This is normal for this area of the city, according to Cllr Boylan.
That’s all the time, she says, before suggesting we move from the "disgusting smell".
On the walk we see open drug dealing on doorsteps and groups of young men congregating together.
"We've seen drug dealing going on and it looked to me like it was tablets - probably benzos and stuff like that," says Cllr Boylan.
Garda visibility
After an hour we make our way back to the Spire - close to where we met up an hour before.
In that time we have seen no gardaí patrolling the streets on foot.
I ask: "What's your final observation?"
"We're walking around for an hour and not one garda have we seen," Cllr Boylan says.
"It's just not right. These random, unprovoked attacks are happening way too often.
"They wouldn't happen as much if we had more visibility of gardaí on the street."
After parting ways with Cllr Boylan, a single garda car drives up O'Connell Street.
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Street violence
It is at that point I meet two women who have experienced violence on the streets of Dublin late at night.
The women are in their 20s. They explain they are on a night out to meet friends.
They are walking together because it is too dangerous to walk alone.
"There's a lot of people out here who are dangerous," says the first woman.
"People drink too much and you don't know what way they're gonna react.
"People do drugs and you don't know what they're gonna react like. I've been attacked a few times."
"Ecstasy. MDMA. Cocaine. Everything is rampant at the minute in the city"
"My answer would be similar," says the second woman.
"I wouldn't feel safe, but in a group it's kind of okay.
"I feel like people on their own are more targetted. It's honestly a mix of everything.
"No one is really safe because when there's drinking and drugs involved it's all up in the air."
I ask: "Who targets who? What kind of drugs do you think we're talking [about]?"
"Well, anything and everything," the woman responds quickly.
"Ecstasy. MDMA. Cocaine. Everything is rampant at the minute in the city".
'He started sizing me up'
The next person recounts how a man abused her on the street.
"You see people shouting at people and starting fights with people just because they looked at someone," she says.
"If you look at someone wrong, if you just look at them they will start to fight you."
Has this happened to you, I ask?
"Actually," she responds. "I was on my phone and a man thought I was recording him.
"I was like, oh, no, I wasn't recording you and I can show you if you want. He started sizing me up.
"Then a lady intervened and said I wasn’t recording. I think if that lady wasn't there, I would have gotten into a fight with a grown man."
"How did you feel at that point," I ask.
"Scared," she replies.
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'It is too dangerous and not a place for someone alone'
There is one outlier during my vox pop for the Morning Ireland programme on RTÉ Radio 1.
It is an American couple on the last day of their honeymoon.
I ask: "Do you feel safe in Dublin?"
"It's been fine," the man replies."I haven't had any issues".
"Gangs of young lads beating people up - there are a lot of muggings"
Leaving O'Connell Street and walking towards College Green, I meet a group of three men.
All explain they do not go out after 11pm in the city because it is too dangerous and not a place for someone alone.
"I wouldn't feel safe walking around on my own," says one man.
I query why?
"I have seen it with my own eyes," he responds quickly.
"Gangs of young lads beating people up. There are a lot of muggings.
"They’re all young fellas - 15 and 16 year olds."
I ask: "How vicious is what the man has seen?"
"Three of four people jumping on one person to beat them up," he replies.
"I have seen it once last week and about two weeks ago too."
He adds that a shop close to where he lives has a gang of "nine or ten young fellas" hanging around outside regularly.
They are: "Beating up people walking past it … vulnerable, vulnerable people. They see somebody vulnerable and they go after them, pick on them, try and mug them or just even just beat them up."
"I just don't feel safe at night time walking around," says the man who adds the solution is more gardaí on the beat on inner city streets.
"More guards on the streets, I think is the answer to it.
"Like you don't really see that many guards, you know, patrolling the streets.
"You see them driving around and stuff, but you don't see them walking around Dublin anymore."
