There needs to be a more "holistic approach", coupled with an increased garda presence, to allay the safety concerns of residents in the capital, according to the CEO of the Dublin Town business group.
Richard Guiney, who is also a member of the Dublin City Taskforce, said there cannot be any tolerance for knife crime after a 34-year-old man was killed in a knife attack in Dublin city centre at the weekend.
Quam Babatunde was stabbed on South Anne Street in the early hours of Saturday morning.
"1,000 extra gardaí would be very welcome. There is a civic reassurance when people see gardaí on the street. There's more that needs to be done to improve the situation," Mr Guiney said.
He added: "I think we have to be realistic, we're not going to have gardaí on every street corner 24 hours a day.
"We're not going to police ourselves out of the problems that we have in the city.
"That's one of the things in the [Dublin city] taskforce report where we are looking at a more holistic approach to how we manage the city. I think that's vital."
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Guiney said that taskforce's report last year highlighted the concerns people have about the city centre.
The taskforce was established by then taoiseach Simon Harris last May to come up with a plan revitalise the capital in the wake of the November 2023 riots and the Covid-19 pandemic.
"We do know that people don't feel as safe in the city as we would like them to feel, and that's something that's been an ongoing issue for decades at this stage.
"Our view is that would be a lot of the issues underlying those poor perceptions of safety are detailed in the Taoiseach's taskforce report," he said.
Mr Guiney added the report found that vacant and derelict buildings around the city centre also contribute to people feeling unsafe in the city centre.
The violence on South Anne Street came a week after three people were injured by a 29-year-old man in a knife attack in Stoneybatter.
"We want to get back to, basically, having a city where people feel welcome and feel safe," Mr Guiney said.
"We need to look at how we work with vulnerable people, we need to look at the heavy concentration of services within the core city centre.
"We really need to move on to implementing the recommendations because we honestly do believe that they are the solutions that we need to see coming forward," he added.
Dublin is not 'a new Gotham city' - Fine Gael TD
Fine Gael TD Barry Ward has said that Ireland is "one of the safest countries in the world" and praised the garda response to the knife attack on South Anne Street.
"If you look at the statistics, Ireland is one of the safest countries ... Let's not get carried away with the presentation of Dublin somehow is a kind of a new Gotham city, it's not," he said.
"It doesn't mean that we don't need to be hard on incidents like what we saw at the weekend and make sure that they cannot happen."
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, Mr Ward said gardaí responded very quickly to the violence.
"One of the things that I'm very encouraged by in relation to this awful attack at the weekend is just how many gardaí were on scene in a short period of time."
He added that increased funding for An Garda Síochána was showing that problems are being tackled.
Gardaí need to have more 'visibility' in capital - Carthy
Sinn Féin's spokesperson for justice Matt Carthy has called for gardaí to have a greater presence and visibility in Dublin city centre.
"It shouldn't be a case of whether we should have gardaí in squad cars or whether we should have gardaí patrolling our streets. The truth is that we need both.
"Gardaí on the street being visible not only provides that comfort and assurance to people who have to walk those streets, but it also does provide a deterrent effect and evidence points to that," Mr Carthy said.
Also speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, he claimed that people "don’t feel safe" walking around the capital.
"In key areas of Dublin city centre, anybody that has had reason to walk from O'Connell Street to Connolly station or Busáras, for example, would tell you that it's not a pleasant experience and that they don't feel safe."
He added: "I think there has been an acknowledgement that to have the same number of gardaí in total as was the case when Fine Gael came to government in 2011, considering the increase in population and the increased challenges that the gardaí face, isn't sustainable."
