A YUPPIE HELL

DUBLIN at night is a dangerous place. So I'm told. I've walked its streets for over thirteen years and was only assaulted once. (And that was when I tried to break up a fight.) OK, I'm tall and reasonably imposing, so I would not seem like an easy target but all the same, my experience of Dublin streets is a fairly happy one.

I lived in Chicago for a while, where every weekend some three-five people were shot dead. Compared to it Dublin is a very safe place indeed. One wonders why then the Irish media seems to have an instant orgasm every time it finds another juicy 'tourist got robbed/beaten up' story. Crime statistics show that Dublin compares very favourably with other European cities. But I suppose there's nothing better to sell a few extra copies than a helping of gore.

The major problem Dublin faces at night - or during the day - is not crime. It is a lack of amenities and respect for its indigenous population. Dublin is being yuppyised. While it's great to see a vibrant night life in the Temple Bar area, I find it hard to deal with the poseurs which pollute it. And while new developments are giving the city a modern look, one wonders whether getting rid of the natives is an underlying policy of all this construction.

There's very little to do if you're from the Inner City, except hang around. Should the Public Order Bill become law, it looks like even doing that will become a crime. Pen them into the economic prisons of their ghettos, seems to be Government policy. Keep O'Connell Street clean and tidy for the tourists and Southside yuppies.

When a tourist asks you to show them something unique about Dublin, do you bring them to Blackrock or to Moore Street? What areas of Dublin did Behan, O'Casey and The Commitments celebrate? I'm not trying to romanticise the rale Dubliner here, merely to point out that it is people like Hannah Moran - who CIE went to so much trouble to ban from selling fruit and chocolate outside Heuston Station - that give the city its character and flavour. Yuppies belong to an international community of blandness and shallowness. Do we want Dublin - night and day - to become just another point on that arid map?

• Gerry McGovern