Photos show conditions faced by asylum seekers sleeping in Mount Street ‘tent city’

Hundreds of asylum seekers and other homeless people have been living in tents on Mount Street outside the International Protection Office (IPO) for several months.

In one photo, a man is seen looking through documents after coming out of the IPO building. In another, a queue of 10 people including children wait at the building’s door.

Tents on both sides of the street go around the corners and many of them have been placed close together in a small space.

Some of the tents have been painted with slogans including “seeking asylum is not a crime”, “homes are a human right”, “EU’s racist asylum policy” and “we are not subhuman”.

A banner above one of the tents reads: “Refugees are not [a] threat Government”.

Speaking before the Dáil on Tuesday, Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik told Taoiseach Simon Harris “you need to get a handle on this” and said the Government’s immigration policy has “failed”.

"The clearest evidence of that failure is just around the corner. Hundreds of people now, sleeping in tents and makeshift shelters in desperately unsanitary conditions on Mount Street," she said.

"I was there again this morning, meeting with some of those people, also speaking with local residents and traders who are sympathetic to the desperate plight of those in tents but also deeply frustrated at the deteriorating situation, with more and more tents each day.

"No access to sanitation, no sign of any action from Government. It is inhumane and unsustainable. You have no accommodation strategy even while big public buildings like Baggot Street Hospital sit scandalously idle nearby.”

A number of protests have taken place around the Mount Street site, including on April 19 when pro-migrant and anti-migrant demonstrators were separated by the garda public order unit.

In March, some of the people living in tents on Mount Street were relocated to Crooksling, a townland in the Dublin Mountains. Some of those who were relocated to Crooksling returned to the Mount Street site just a day later.

There are currently 1,758 asylum seekers who are homeless in Ireland. The Taoiseach said the people sleeping rough on Mount Street will be offered safe accommodation elsewhere and once people are moved from the site, tents will not be allowed to be re-erected.