When you have a site where you can actually build high rises, build those high rises. In terms of office development, it is important that every office in the city centre has a residential aspect. That's one way of doing it. Over the shops is a major, major, major issue. So, you know, that needs a massive incentive, a really massive incentive. And take, for instance, from Camden Street right down to the bottom of George’s Street as one example street, and work on that particular street in terms of the overheads.

Equally what I'd say is that any TD, any MEP, any councillor that has a constituency office, where the office overhead no one is living, needs to rethink their strategy. I also believe that the likes of Collins Barracks, that barracks and all the work that in there, which is the artwork, it's not that precious, but it's precious enough to be taken elsewhere, and those that are in dire need of accommodation who are on our streets should be accommodated in that.

[Dublin City Council Chief Executive] Richard Shakespeare has the power … to give an exemption to developments for the council to begin the process. If Mr Shakespeare would behave in the way [former Dublin City Council Chief Executive] Mr. [Owen] Keegan behaved when he was shoving through the cycleways, in terms of that infrastructure, and if we transpose that to housing, we wouldn't be in this situation. And that's what needs to be done. The executive at Dublin City Council need to be told that this is what you're doing, instead it’s loads of excuses. Also, I think that the NGOs and the approved housing bodies need to step up to the mark.

In many cases, these places are so dilapidated, that in many cases I believe that the blocks of flats – notwithstanding the facades – need to be removed and need to be rebuilt entirely. Herbert Simms [Dublin Corporation architect from 1932 to 1948] if he was alive today, and he saw the status of the buildings, would be the first person to pull them all down, because they're no different than many of the buildings that he came across in the [19]30s.

It's okay for the Green Party and [Environment Minister] Eamon Ryan to talk about retrofitting and all this kind of carry on, but in the meantime, children are actually being poisoned in these particular blocks. All of this rests on the shoulders of the council and rests on the shoulders of the councillors who are responsible for this and they're not being held to account.

Everybody who is suffering in relation to this matter should be given the opportunity to form their own recognised regeneration boards – not one that's actually been shoved down their throat, that's loaded up against them – and trained then to do that. Also the people that live within these estates should be basically given the opportunity to be the caretakers and be the managers of their own estates, they should be trained into that particular situation, so that they can run the estate really well, because Dublin City Council are appalling when it comes to estate management, appalling when it comes to dealing with anti-social behaviour.

You have to actually have eyes and ears in these particular streets and you have to kind of literally have covert operations where you actually really impact on these people and name and shame them. The point of the matter is that Dublin City Council, as [council chief executive] Richard Shakespeare says, they don't have those resources. Those resources have been stripped out. But also, I would say equally, they don't have an example where they've actually managed to do this, it’s simply all excuses. The bottom line is that people in this city behave in an appalling manner towards each other. We saw that during the [November 2023] riots, and we can see that in anti-social behavior of drunkenness on our streets, and dog poo and the disregard and the disrespect. The response to that is Lord Mayor [Daithí] de Róiste[‘s campaign], a kinder city, which is a bit of a joke. It's not about a kind of city. It's about the fact that we don't respect each other anymore. And that disrespect is something that's been basically engaged with and promoted by the authorities, because they never stood up to the mark and stamped this out.

Basically you have a statutory instrument called CPOs, compulsory purchase orders, and any of these buildings that are lying idle in the city centre, that we could utilise, we basically need to do that. But the problem with that is that the city council have no great example of being able to do CPOs, because they don't want that responsibility. Those CPOs should also apply to the likes of the HSE and the Baggot Street hospital. No state property should be put up for private sale, unless there's a really valid reason – these should be handed over for housing and community amenities.

The city needs to be safer by basically, first of all, by the citizens looking out for each other, and the presence of security on our streets, and that can be in the guise of An Garda Síochána, or that can be in the guise of organised privatised security, that would actually go up and down the street and be able to monitor the situation. We do know that Dublin is awash with cameras in terms of security cameras, there's more cameras in Dublin, than there is in Hollywood.

The point of the matter is that there is a level of drunkenness and a level of aggression that’s coming out of the alcohol and the drugs industry. They’re telling us that they want to extend opening hours, but we don’t have the facilities to be able to deal with the possible fallout of people falling around the place being drunk. We don’t have those resources. The tourism industry and indeed the airline industry just want to flood Dublin with tourists who’ll come over here on the binge. The safety aspect for women is pretty appalling. The safety aspect for children is non-existent. You do not see children on the streets in the evening.

First of all you need to get people who are willing to actually work in public transport, because it’s very very difficult getting drivers because of the anti-social behaviour and the direct threats.  

You've got people who are waiting for buses that are not coming. So basically the system is non-existent. The system is phantom. 

I think what you need to have a situation where you have a respect and that respect is going to come from pedestrians and it's going to come from cyclists and it's going to come from motorists. Now a lot of the cyclists think they can do what they like, can go up on footpaths and God knows what. A lot of the motorists are irate because they’ve been pushed and shoved and moved this way and that way, they’re not quite sure where to go. We also need a limit of speed on bicycles as well as on cars. We need to have a situation where we have a proper policing unit. And I know the guards that are on the traffic unit. They're very stressed out, very, very stressed out, by what they have to come across. So we need to actually ask everybody to be responsible.

As soon as you refer to these people as far right, you’re giving them some sort of political platform. They’re criminal thugs. End of story. I worked in all of this stuff in London in the ’70s, when we were part of the Anti-Nazi League and all of those kinds of situations, when we actually were dealing with racists, right-wingers and extremists. What you have here, if you go onto social media, you have a couple of fly-by-nights, a couple of individuals roaring their heads off … and it’s all fuelled by a lack of information from the government. Now if you include people into the process, because I'm all over the country, by and large Irish people are welcoming. But the anger is at the government and the lack of information, when a number of people arrive, and all of a sudden, amenities are short, and so on and so forth. And all of sudden there’s nobody in authority, there’s no one in leadership, and there’s nobody being responsible, and then all of a sudden then you get the media jumping around.