NICHOLAS Street is a disgrace and left to decay, warn locals, demanding immediate attention from the authorities.
What angers them is that the street is a main artery to a number of tourist attractions, and also within yards of City Hall.
Patience is running out for traders and residents.
It is even claimed there is open dealing of heroin on the narrow street, which has been described as a meeting point for sellers and addicts, with often up to a dozen gathering to buy drugs.
A gate was erected to close off one alleyway to undesirables.
The passageway, to the rear of City Hall, is regularly littered with syringes, it has been claimed.
Councillor Maurice Quinlivan condemned the volume of drug dealing in the area and is particularly concerned in that there are three schools in the vicinity.
He said: “This is the main thoroughfare for tourists walking from King John’s Castle to the Cathedral and the Treaty Stone, and it is a disgrace the way it has been neglected”.
He said that Gardaí recently raided one property.
Four pubs, an amusement arcade and takeaway, a printers, two antique shops, two newsagents, a polish foodstore and a number of offices dot the street.
Others have closed, and traders feels that unless Limerick City Council address recurring problems, there will be more casualties.
The one-way traffic system and lack of parking spaces are blamed for loss of business.
One trader consistently receives parking fines while unloading goods.
He pointed to the number of derelict properties.
“They have done nothing for us in the past 20 years. They widened the footpaths to make the street more attractive and look at the results; we now have 23ft of footpath and 13ft of road…”.
Nicholas Street, it was said, should be a tourist hub, but one resident commented: “The few tourists we do see only come to photograph the weeds”.
