Mount Street: People moved to Citywest and Crooksling as fences erected after clearing of tents

THE MAKESHIFT TENT camp surrounding the International Protection Office on Mount Street in Dublin, where 200 asylum seekers have been living in tents, has been cleared this morning by government agencies.

The Government has said that people, who have been sleeping in tents because the State has been unable to offer them accommodation, have been moved to tented accommodation in Crooksling and Citywest.

Gardaí said the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) was the “lead agency” in the operation, adding that traffic had been diverted away from Mount Street.

Roads are blocked between Merrion Square, Grafton Street and Mount Street. There is a significant Garda presence in the area. The operation began before 7am this morning.

Buses parked along Mount Street this morning, with some having already departed.

It’s understood that there were more tents set up along Mount Street this morning than there were yesterday.

Machinery has been onsite removing the tents and crews have been washing down the streets and installing fencing, with a number of steel barriers now placed along the pavement where the tents were located before their removal.

Fencing erected on Mount Street this morning

In an updated statement, the Government said: “The purpose of the operation is to ensure the safe movement of people seeking international protection from the tents on Mount Street to IPAS-designated accommodation.”

It said the site at Crooksling has “robust, weather-proof” tents with showers, health services, indoor areas where food is provided, as well as access to Dublin city centre and 24-hour security.

“The encampment at Mount Street has been dismantled and the streets are being cleaned by Dublin City Council,” it added.

Dublin City Council said earlier that people camping on Mount Street has “led to conditions that were unhealthy, unsafe and unsanitary”.

It said that today’s “removal of waste and the subsequent cleaning of streets by City Council crews only occurred after all areas were throughly checked for any personal belongings”. .

Speaking to The Journal this morning, one of the men who had been living in a tent in Mount Street for around six weeks said he “can’t believe” he is going to get to “sleep on an actual bed”.

Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme that the people are being moved to more than one location.

Today’s operation comes a day after Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Dáil he would “clear” Mount Street and ensure “makeshift shantytowns” were not allowed to develop again, stating that he did not believe the encampment complied with the “laws of the land”.

He was responding to Labour leader Ivana Bacik’s criticism of the “desperately unsanitary conditions on Mount Street” as “inhumane and unsustainable” and indicative of a failure of government policy.

In March, The Journal spoke to Ola, an asylum seeker who had been sleeping in a tent there for more than a month, said that the lack of toilet facilities available was becoming a serious issue, with human faeces being left on the street near the tents (evidence of this was seen by The Journal).

A photo from March showing a large amount of rubbish built up near the tents.

Ola said that the people living in the tents are not allowed to use bathrooms in the International Protection Office, and that they were being advised to use the toilets in the day facilities that the Department of Integration has contracted to provide meals, showering facilities, tents and other services to asylum seekers.

The two main day services being used, the Capuchin Day Centre and Merchants Quay Ireland, are 3.2km and 2.5km away respectively.

The Lighthouse cafe has also been providing toilet facilities, but it is only open at select times in the morning and evening, and closed after 10pm most evenings. It is 1.2km away.

Some of the tents outside the International Protection Office

Taoiseach Simon Harris has thanked the multiple State agencies involved in this morning’s operation, adding that the situation “had become completely unacceptable”.

“The laws of our land must always be upheld and we cannot have unsafe and illegal encampments in our cities or towns,” he said.

Speaking to reporters at Mount Street this morning, Labour leader Ivana Bacik said she welcomes “that the Government has finally moved to address what had become inhumane and unsustainable conditions here for those seeking refuge to who were forced to sleep in tents on the street”.

She said the number of people sleeping in tents in the area had been increasing in recent days.

Bacik said local residents and traders have been “very sympathetic” to the situation but also “deeply frustrated” at the “apparent inability of government to find appropriate and safe accommodation elsewhere”.

The tents on Mount Street were previously cleared on 16 March and many of the people were brought to a site in Crooksling in the Dublin Mountains.

This move was criticised by members of the Opposition, who said it seemed as though the tents were primarily being cleared for the benefit of tourists ahead of St Patrick’s Day.

Some of the people stayed at Mount Street or returned from Crooksling shortly after being moved.

Speaking to reporters at Mount Street this morning, Irish Refugee Council CEO Nick Henderson said that “anything to take somebody off the streets is welcome”, but added that “the experience of St Patrick’s Day weekend was that people were taken to a site that at that time was not suitable and was problematic”.

“We really hope that they’ve been taken somewhere where they can get respite from what they’ve experienced, which is pretty serious,” Henderson said.

“We’ve worked with people there who’ve been there for weeks. Conditions were terrible. So we hope they get some respite,” he said.

With reporting from Muiris O’Cearbhaill and Stephen McDermott.

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