Sir, - What is the legal position regarding street begging? On Tuesday this week I was accosted as soon I got off the bus on Dame Street by a man who insisted I feel his hands (he was cold) and begged me to give him money for breakfast. He had obviously forgotten that I had given him £4 (and felt his hands) the day before, and he was still begging an hour later when I happened to pass him by again.
During my lunch hour today I walked by a woman, with an infant lying prostrate in her arms, begging outside the European Parliament offices on Molesworth Street. I stepped over a man lying outside the post office in Anne Street who claimed he was starving.
A man who was "having a bit of hard luck" was lying in the entrance to Hibernian Way. . Outside the Next shop on Grafton Street was a young man who, either through amputation or birth defect, had stumps for arms. These he displayed with the obvious intention of garnering money.
It is like a Third World country out there in our city. Surely we are not actually leaving people to starve? Are we? And if we are not, why this sudden growth in both home grown beggars and newcomers?
Who, Sir, is the Minister in charge of beggars? - Yours, etc.,
Esther Steele, Saul Road, Crumlin, Dublin 12.