International protection applicants who have pitched tents by the canal close to Mount Street in Dublin say they do not know how long they will have to stay there or what, if any, accommodation they might be offered in the coming days.
Some of the dozens of tents lining the Warrington Place side of the Grand Canal between Mount Street and Huband bridges on Sunday are occupied by migrants who had been sleeping in tents outside the International Protection Office (IPO), which is about 200m away on Lower Mount Street. Others were said to be newly arrived in Ireland. All of those who spoke to The Irish Times said they had nowhere else to go.
The first of the tents are understood to have appeared on Thursday morning but numbers grew substantially over Friday night and Saturday. By Sunday morning close to 70 tents were counted in the area.
Ahmed, from Palestine, said he was one of those who had been bussed to Citywest from outside the International Protection Office when the area was cleared on Wednesday. He said there had been no place for him in Citywest, however, and he was brought back. He was then issued with a letter saying the International Protection Accommodation Service (Ipas) was not in a position to provide him with any supports. It said he would be contacted by email when that changed.
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He said he had lost his tent and some possessions in the clearance but had since been given a new one. Asked how long he thought he and the other migrants might have to stay by the canal, he said: “We don’t know.”
Abdullah from Iraq, who has been in Ireland for two months, also lost his tent this week and was trying to obtain a new one to sleep by the canal on Saturday evening.
Abdel, from Morocco, and his wife, Evelen, from Hungary, were also among those at the canal. He said they arrived in Ireland six months ago, having been in England where his brother is but he has not been able to secure any accommodation here.
Jarah, from Syria, was one of three men setting up a tent late in the afternoon. He said he has been in Ireland for two years and has permission to remain. He normally lives in a hostel, he said, but he had to leave it for a couple of nights. He hoped to return to the hostel then.
A couple of other tents were added over the course of the late afternoon and two had been pitched on the Percy Place side of the waterway.
Nadette and Lara, who are involved in voluntary work with migrants in other parts of the city, came to provide some support for those in the tents. Nadette said the fact that people had been left with no better alternative than a tent a few feet from a busy road as “shocking”.
“Some of these men will be granted refugee and humanitarian protection status, especially the ones from countries like Afghanistan and Somalia, they are not going to be returned. Is this the way we integrate them?”
Locals, none of whom wished to be named or quoted directly, also expressed sympathy for the plight of individuals. The issue of sanitation was a concern raised in relation to the migrants but also the potential impact on people walking in the area.
There was some frustration too that the situation was emerging just days after the area around the International Protection Offices had been cleared and the Taoiseach, Simon Harris, had said the development of such encampments was unacceptable.
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One resident said the Taoiseach needed to stand over what she regarded as a commitment not to allow the situation that had developed around the corner to be repeated.
Another said that to raise concerns about people living in tents in public areas meant being branded as a racist “but how could anyone not be concerned by this?”
Government action was required, he said, to speed up processes so people who needed protection and help got it, he said, but that those who did not were returned to their countries of origin.
A woman said she felt it was somewhat inevitable the tents would start to reappear close to the IPO when everyone had not been provided with accommodation.
She said she understood why it made sense for the migrants to stay in the area but was concerned the conditions would deteriorate if numbers grew. All said the conditions outside the IPO had been deplorable. She said she was aware of various instances of migrants becoming ill as a result.
Kevin Byrne, chair of the South Georgian Core Residents Association, said the organisation, which has about 150 members living in the wider area, does not believe the IPO should continue to operate at its location.
“It’s strongly the view of businesses and residents in the area that the International Protection Office can no longer safely operate from Lower Mount Street.
“These ongoing issues so soon after the clearance operation on Wednesday make it clear to us it can’t manage to provide adequate supports on a busy city centre thoroughfare. It needs to be somewhere where it can provide wraparound supports and actually handle the numbers it’s processing.”
He said the issue of the new encampment by the canal had been reported to Waterways Ireland and An Garda Síochána but he had had no indication that action would be taken to remove people.
“Our concern, based on our experience over the last year, is that if one or two tents are allowed to pitch up, you’ll very quickly have a massive encampment, which is exactly what has started to happen over the past couple of days.
He said he expected the encampment would “get rapidly bigger if it is not dealt with” and the Government should act on the “political commitment” given by the Taoiseach.
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