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Updated 7.30pm
JERVIS STREET SHOPPING Centre has said anti-loitering spikes present outside the Next store in Dublin will be removed after a backlash from the public today.
Bringing the issue to the public’s attention today, an RTÉ Radio One Liveline caller John Kavanagh questioned the danger of the spikes, which can be seen in place outside the Next store at the Henry Street entrance.
Kavanagh, a former owner of a pub, told presenter Joe Duffy that he had similar spikes on his premises but was told by his insurer that he would have to remove them.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie this evening, Jervis Street Shopping Centre said the metal strips were installed 12 years ago by Next as “people were sitting on the walls blocking their window displays”.
The spokesperson continued: “Considering the comments made today about these metal strips, we plan to liaise with Next to arrange their removal. These strips are not in place in any other areas of the Shopping Centre.”
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Spikes and metal barriers have already been put in place in a number of places around the city, including the Department of Social Protection back in 2016.
There was criticism of the decision to install the barriers, with homeless charity Inner City Helping Homeless describing it as an “unsympathetic way of dealing with the homeless crisis”.
However, the Department of Social Protection stressed to TheJournal.ie at the time that it was not an attempt to target the homeless community in any way.
Concerns surrounding spikes and barriers are regularly raise and tend to increase in volume following the death of a person on the streets. Earlier today, it was confirmed that a homeless man died on Suffolk Street in Dublin in the early hours of the morning.
The spikes, posted by Liveline on Twitter, received a significant amount of backlash from social media users.
“What if a blind person sat down to rest their legs? Or if a kid tripped and landed on them,” one user wrote.
“These things are everywhere to prevent you from sitting down, very unwelcoming city Dublin has become,” wrote another.
While Kavanagh criticised Next for the installation of the spikes during his Liveline interview, the store told TheJournal.ie that it was not responsible and it was the shopping centre that had put them in place.
Jervis Street Shopping Centre contradicted this, saying the store itself had put them in place 12 years ago.
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“backlash across social media.”
lol – 1 Tweet from Liveline with 2 mildly negative replies from Anna and Sean.
@Ryan Boyle: is anybody else getting sick of how everything is somehow twisted to involve the homeless crisis?
@Sean Murphy: Turn Leinster house into a hotel for the homeless,it’s only use 2 months of the year,.
@Pat Troy: right on que you are there. Broken record
@Sean Murphy: Possibly because it is a real crises that we as a nation are refusing to recognise?
@Sean Murphy: good man sean,ivory coast is it.
@Ryan Boyle: It worked!
@Sean Murphy: imagine if we had no one homeless would that be better ? honestly some of the people on here are truly heartless how the hell do they sleep at night disgusting people with disgusting comments .
@Pat Troy: fleur-de-lis Mr broken record
@Sean Murphy: please don’t repeat .
@Ryan Boyle: if people object to the spikes they can take their custom elsewhere and spend their money in shops without spikes.
Watch them disappear the next day as Next/Jervis? feels the pinch!!!!
Anti loitering spikes, why can’t they just say we don’t want people homeless or not, sitting outside begging and rightly so.
@Gavin Redmond: here here.
@Danny foley: there there
@Tom Tom: I think it after hours ,and also used as a loo.
@Gavin Redmond: they were fitted 12 years ago or didn’t you read the story. We didn’t have as bad a homeless crisis 12 years ago. The snowflake that made it a Twitter storm was probably 5 when they were fitted. Imagine waiting all that time to get offended about something. Where is this person now. Probably looking for their next fix of fame.
Something needs to change at that Luas stop. Beggers, junkies, criminals seem to congregate there. Very unsafe in the evening but also during the day. In any other country, the cops would come along and clear out the area. But not dear soft old Ireland, we are expected to not only put up with it but also pay for their free house and drug money, oops i mean welfare.
@Fred Jensen: It is in our constitution that being a beggar cannot be a crime. legal precedent has been set now so limited gardai powers a number of years ago. That is why it got worse
@Kal Ipers: did we not bring in a law to stop Roma’s from begging in certain areas?
@Gareth Cooney: yes, but just begging, not Roma Begging. As in all begging.
@Kal Ipers: where does it say that in our constitution?
@Fred Jensen: Well said. Agree 100%. You need eyes in the back of your head walking anywhere near that Luas stop. It’s a complete free for all, day n night..
@Fred Jensen: public servants don’t work after 5.
@Pat Troy: What does that have to do with the junkies and dirt bags hanging around Jervis?
@Fred Jensen: i have often seen security men at that stop
If you don’t like them, don’t sit on them
@John Mulligan: Sound advice. Wolfe Tone Park, right at the corner of Jervis Street shopping centre, has plenty of public seating.
I could not care less about those who are triggered by anti loitering spikes. The protests will be tiny but they’ll be heard by the jumped up Irish media with more fake outrage.
These spikes have been there since about 2008. Why the uproar in 2017?
@James Griffin: Losers with nothing else going on in their lives.
@Ryan Boyle: People too blinkered to see all the free public benches around the corner. If you can walk down Henry Street and Mary Street to get to the shopping centre, you can walk to the corner and sit down comfortably for free.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: Too last to do that and would rather get outraged on Twitter about it.
@Dave Murray: lazy*
Ah these have been here for years. They are not anti-homeless spikes, they stop people sitting there and bottle-necking the shops entrance. Calm down lads.
@It’s Jess!: I’ll delete my comment
Couldn’t be bothered going to take a photo???
Pigeon spikes for humans ???? Love it.
They should fit them down in drumchondra ahead of the human pigeons arriving in from Mayo on 17th Sept.
parking on grass verges, parking in people’s driveways and parking on top of kids bicycles you name it boy.
@Gareth Cooney: just make sure we have our grass verges, ready for the long road West with Sam.
They have been there for years so don’t know where it’s coming from that they have only been installed .
Delighted they are up
what’s wrong with stopping junkies loitering?
Even as a dub. Town has turned to shitt
That’s a clear nasty accident, just waiting to happen when someone trip and falls head first on that.
we should compile a list of items that are dangerous to trip and fall headfirst on – and have them all banned.
I’ll start:
Milking stools,
Kerbs,
Toilet roll holders
@alphanautica: You jest, but I saw a kid with blood coming out of the soke of his shoe afrer trying to walk along the spikes of iron gate in 1987, and it still gives me the shivers.
@alphanautica:
We could – but with these dangerous spikes, why raise the percentage of such accidents – or additional lawsuit – happen?
There must be better ways to deter whatever they wish to not have there. besides starting to turn Dublin further into a Tourist eyesore, opportunist people looking to find something to make a claim over, will see these also as a further gift.
@alphanautica: and spikes designed to skewer people
@Neal Ireland Hello.: Serves that kid right.
@alphanautica: pint glasses
Pointy rocks
Buses
@Austin Rock: you’d want to be really dumb to manage to skewer yourself on a short blunt spike.
@Unitedpeople: Most people aren’t acrobatic enough to trip on something, spin mid-air and land head-first on the same thing. Also there seems to be a whole doorway and a solid building to hold on to. Should that be padded as well?
@Neal Ireland Hello.: and that kid never walked on spikes again….
Is it me or does Anna Coleman bear a striking resemblance to Roy keane
@Dave O’Hanlon: and she closed her account…
Whether it has anything to do with the homeless is irrelevant. This is an accident and lawsuit waiting to happen.
@Sean P O’Leary: how so?
How is it different from you tripping on a kerb & splatting your face into a fresh warm dog shit? It’s your own fault.
@Sean P O’Leary: waiting to happen? They’ve been there for years and this is the first time I’ve heard these complaints and “concerns”.
@Ryan Boyle: Seriously ?? You’re comparing getting hurt falling on that to falling in dog shit? There are people out there who will do stupid stuff like that just to get lawsuit going.
@Sean P O’Leary: sean you’re a muppet. PC brigade gone mad. Ya clown.
Some comments full of human empathy as usual.
@Dave Doyle: the comments are now over ran by heartless supremacists that are blind to anything outside their own sad lives. Sad really.
A lawsuit waiting to happen!
If you complain to Liveline is your point even valid? Now i think of it, same applies to The Journal comments section.
Can see a few big compo claims ! They look like they could do severe damage to someone who tripped and fell over for what ever reason and absolutely dyer looking .
I am getting my ass down to Jervis Street right away. Cha Ching
@John Mullan: brave man to fall into one of them things. The thoughts of one going through your knee. Ouch
@Ivan Truckrcar: Sadly as we might see in coming months, there is people willing to take that risk.
@Ivan Truckrcar: ah now I’ve seen a picture, not as bad as I thought Go for it John you be grand.
Backlash on social media? Is social media still a “thing”?
Another waste of taxpayers money. Maybe they’ll be put into storage alongside the electronic voting machines.
@Ray Farrell: Think it was private business money. They were put there by Next (or the shopping centre) and will be removed by the same
@Anne Marie Devlin: ah right, awful waste all the same.
what if a child falls or an elderly person slip`s or even a drunk falls over and lands on them ? according to the comments below it would be ok ? what have we come down to ….
@Peter donnelly: Well we have the junkies, drunks and homeless below them we have the self satisfied who believe nothing can happen to them. The cesspool basically full of opinions and maybe one day reality might stand up and smack them in the face……..
It’s actually difficult to think of where there are benches in public spaces in the city centre. Stephens Green, a few in the IFSC, along the Liffey….. Oh riiiiight…. That’s why there is no seating.
Just show us a picture of the bleedin spikes will ye
Talk shit to Joe.
shame on you Next… never again you inhumane corporate p#$×k $…. go sell your s#$%e somewhere else
Spike island
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