Taoiseach announces plans to clear ‘tent city’ on Mount St

A ‘tent city’ has sprung up at the International Protection Office in Dublin city as more than 1,700 asylum seekers have been left without an offer of accommodation from Ireland.

Although, the Government is refusing to say when another operation will be launched, Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Dáil there are plans to provide a safer setting once "we clear Mount Street”.

He said: "We do not live in a country where makeshift shanty towns are allowed to just develop."

He continued: "I am saying very clearly the plan is to provide the people on Mount Street with better accommodation and access to sanitation - and not to allow a situation where ad hocery can come about in terms of the development of accommodation. That is a really important thing to do."

Mr Harris said there were two aspects to Mount Street. "The first is the need to provide all those vulnerable people living in tents with access to accommodation and a safer setting as quickly as possible.

"The second is that once we clear Mount Street and provide people with a safer setting and access to sanitation, we need to make sure that the laws of the land are applied and it is not allowed to happen again."

He was responding to Labour leader Ivana Bacik in the Dáil who said the Government's immigration plan has "failed".

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

"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."

Around 200 people are currently sleeping tents on Mount Street, Grattan Street and nearby alleyways. The tents were cleared just before St Patrick's Day and asylum seekers were brought to a site in Crooksling in the Dublin mountains. However, many returned with tents appearing back at the site later that day.

The fresh clearance is thought imminent, but government spokespersons could not or would not put a timeframe on the move, nor on whether there could be repeat procedures.

A spokesman for the Taoiseach said the encampment outside the International Protection Office was not lawful, but described as "hypothetical" the idea that there could be repeat clearances if asylum seekers keep returning to camp there.