One of the groups at the centre of the “tent city” of men camped around the International Protection Office is Social Rights Ireland.
The camp at Mount Street has grown intermittently since an attempt to establish a similar one in the middle of a working-class community off Pearse Street was ended by local protests.
The controversy took a new turn on Saturday when the occupants of the tents in Mount Street were moved to a site at Crooksling which is outside Tallaght in the foothills of the Dublin mountains. There is a former nursing home, St. Brigid’s, there – and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has claimed that there are toilet and cleaning facilities provided.
That would appear to be a preferable alternative to the deliberate creation of a shanty town in the middle of Dublin with all that creates in terms of sanitation, rubbish, and the dangers presented to local residents, people who work in the area or have to use the streets and pavements which are part of the occupation.
Gript's @Ben_Scallan reports from the migrant tent city outside the International Protection Office on Mount Street. pic.twitter.com/kjDjPP55rH
— gript (@griptmedia) March 13, 2024
Some of the activists who are providing the support network for the group seem to have preferred that the men move back to Mount Street where an attempt has been made to re-establish the camp. There have been claims made on social media that some of those who returned to the city centre were given lifts by people including some of the journalists who had arrived at Crooksling.
It is quite evident that others are involved in the organisation of the tent city other than the men actually living in the tents. As noted at a previous effort, the provenance of the camps are evident in the banners which festoon the fencing close to the “shanty”, or in the political slogans painted on the tents.
Credit: Gript
Credit: Gript
Amidst all the outrage around Sandwith Street was the acknowledgment in some media reporting that many of those involved in the ‘migrant camp’ were activists, while local people also confirmed to Gript’s reporter that the activists were unfamiliar faces in the area.
Today a statement was issued by People Before Profit on behalf of United Against Racism, Social Rights Ireland and End Direct Provision Action calling for a protest this evening against the Government’s actions on asylum seekers.
One of the most prominent media faces for this has been Róisín McAleer of Social Rights Ireland who has appeared on several news reports and been extensively quoted in national and local newspapers.
She told the Irish Independent last Tuesday that she had become involved in “providing clean clothes and blankets” to the men. She also referred to the “human misery” evident without mentioning the fact that all of those who were there, defecating on the street – and allegedly smearing their excrement on doors – were the authors of their own situation.
McAleer is described as a “part-time schoolteacher and mother” who had spent “thousands of her own money trying to help people” after a GoFundMe account had been “drained.” Which is an unfortunate situation given that she is a member of a group who might surely provide her with some assistance on that front? They certainly seem to have sufficient funding to engage in publicity.
I merely state that because contrary to the impression given, and indeed some commentary, including some from not particularly friendly sources, Social Rights Ireland is not an NGO. It is a far-left political organisation or alliance which sports the red star of communism bizarrely festooned with a portrait of Constance Markievicz who was a member of Fianna Fáil when she died in 1927.
Its Twitter page describes it as “a movement to protect human rights,” – while on Telegram, its overriding concern seems to be with Palestine. Whilst their YouTube says that the housing crisis was “planned…created for the benefit those in the pockets of the Zionist interests.” These interests, they say, “are controlling Ireland’s wealth, economic, and labour power.”
Most of its posts of late have been connected to the conflict there and in particular to attacking Sinn Féin over its meeting with Joe Biden in Washington.
One prominent social media commentator and latter-day Sinn Féin booster, Tadgh Hickey, had a tweet announcing his falling out with the Shinners over that reposted by his new chums. Another indication of the cleft stick in which Sinn Féin now finds itself as it loses support from the left and from voters whose concerns over migration and even the referendum they only notice when it is too late. Leave them to it.
Included in the photograph on the Social Rights Telegram page is one Pir-Kupi Samiszewke who has been interviewed by Ailbhe Connolly of RTÉ in a piece on the men in the tents on Mount Street.
Presumably, this would indicate that he has found time from his busy schedule as a seeker of asylum from somewhere to become a member or at the very least close supporter of an Irish communist organisation. He also appears in a video for Social Rights Ireland which is accompanied by comments decrying “institutional racism” and “green fascists” – and accusing Ireland of operating an “apartheid asylum regime”.
The fingerprints of the group or perhaps others on the far-left can be seen in the slogans that were daubed on tents and walls at Mount Street.
How likely is it that someone who arrived here from Nigeria or Palestine or Zimbabwe is going to decide to decorate their tent outside the place they applied for asylum with slogans about “green fascism” and “institutional racism” or how the struggle for homes unites themselves and their comrades who happen to be homeless and Irish?
Pretty slim I’d say. It is also apparent from videos and comments on their Twitter page of the group and elsewhere that the left is attempting to make a connection between unoccupied houses and attempts to encourage occupations. One poster mused: “maybe we should force ourselves into those derelict houses around the place” making reference to previous such stunts.
Stunts they are, but they have a serious intent. The government and indeed the Gardaí have made much of their determination not to allow extremists to make their presence felt in a disruptive manner on the streets and at protests. Well, here we have the far-left who appear to be supporting the establishment of a shanty town.
The kind of Garda intervention that is usually inevitable when it comes to homeless people pitching tents in the capital has been largely not in evidence until now – and the tent protest is backed up by soft focus media boosting, and even mainstream politicians saying more or less the same thing as the agitators at Mount Street and Crooksling.
It doesn’t really matter whether that is based on well-meaning naivety or political opportunism, it is helping to support actions which are likely to create social tensions.