Matt Carthy says Dublin has become “national embarrassment” in wake of assaults

“I think many people have come to the realisation that Dublin city centre has become a national embarrassment,” he said.

Carthy was speaking following an attack on an American tourist on Talbot Street on Wednesday night.

He said that the root cause of the issue did not lay with the residents, but instead blamed it on “successive governments” and particularly Fine Gael.

“It is something that is a cause of huge embarrassment to the Irish people and in the first instance, we need to see an increase in Garda numbers and we need to see Government take action to revitalise Dublin city centre,” he said.

“That is the least that the people who live there deserve, but it’s also needed for Ireland in terms of the image we project to the wider world.”

The TD said the city centre should be a source of “pride”, saying that it was where the Irish Republic was first declared in 1916.

The issues in Dublin city centre have been raised across the political spectrum, with Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan saying on Morning Ireland on Friday that Dublin has become “lawless” and has called for a greater number of gardaí on the streets of Dublin.

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar remarked earlier that Dublin “has a problem with public order offences.”

“I’m somebody who is from Dublin and lived in Dublin all my life. But like any city, it has a problem with public order offences and violence happen,” he said on RTÉ news.

A Garda station was opened on O’Connell Street earlier this year in an attempt to tackle the issue, but according to Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon, the station has “not made a noticeable difference.”