Citizens and visitors to Dublin are experiencing “a fear factor” when in the city as a result of a rise in the occurrence of aggressive begging, the Oireachtas Justice Committee has been told.
Representatives of business groups told the committee that the practice had become more prevalent in the last 12 months and that additional garda resources and a review of begging legislation were required to address the issue.
Deirdre Devitt, of the Licensed Vintners Association, said people should be able to frequent Dublin without the fear of harassment or intimidation but many experienced this because of aggressive begging, which was having a knock-on effect on commerce in the city.
She cited an online survey of 524 people on begging, carried out by research firm Behaviours and Attitudes, which found 98 per cent felt aggressive begging had a substantially negative impact on the attractiveness of Dublin; 60 per cent felt begging had some effect on their likeliness to visit the city; and more than half said it put them off socialising in the city at night.
Independent TD Finian McGrath sought a definition of aggressive begging, which Adrian Cummins of the Restaurants Association of Ireland defined as patrons outside a premises having a person or people doing a round and coming back every 15-20 minutes looking for money and responding aggressively when it was not provided.
Mr McGrath said begging was a complex issue but that the definition provided by Mr Cummins was essentially “harassment”.
Richard Guiney, of Dublin Town, said the practice had created “a fear factor” on Dublin’s streets.
Martin Harte, of the Temple Bar Company, said the issue was not regular begging, which he noted had been around for a long time and would continue to go forward, but rather aggressive begging as a behavioural issue that left people feeling "intimated, menaced and threatened".
Ms Devitt said garda resources in the city had been scaled back by some 12 per cent since 2009 and overtime was down by 61 per cent. Even though gardaí provided a tremendous service, there was an overwhelming case for additional policing in Dublin given the economy was improving, she said.
A review of legislation was also required as gardaí were limited in what they could do under the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 2011, she said, and “moving the problem along” was not the answer as aggressive begging was a complex issue involving matters such as homelessness and drug addiction.
The 2011 Act never functioned properly in terms of dealing with the begging issue, the committee heard, with a vagueness in section five of the Act making it almost impossible to secure a conviction in the courts.
Sinn Féin TD Padraig Mac Lochlainn said he often felt obliged to help people begging in the city but that if you gave money to everybody you met you could end up homeless yourself.
He said the issue had been ignored for too long, he had seen women being pursued up Grafton Street aggressively and that the use of the term “intimidated” would be gentle in some cases.
Mr Harte said the City of Westminster in London had used anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) to address the problem in particularly aggressive cases.
A number of TDs raised the point of organised begging, but the groups said there were no statistics on the prevalence of that particular issue. They also said there was no evidence of a link between drug treatment centres being in the city centre and aggressive begging.
Ms Devitt said said the death of homeless man Jonathan Corrie this week was a terrible tragedy and that she hoped the convening of a forum on homelessness could find a means to address the issue, which she said should be kept separate to the problem of aggressive begging.
Committee chairman David Stanton TD (FG) asked the business groups to report back with details of what they would like to see changed in the 2011 Act and said the committee could engage with the Dáil and Seanad about potential amendments.
He also said the committee may invite garda representatives in for further discussion of the issue.
