A joint operation is underway this morning between Minister Roderic O’Gorman’s Department of Integration, Minister Helen McEntee’s Department of Justice, the Gardaí, Dublin City Council, Waterways Ireland, and the HSE to clear the migrant tent city at the Grand Canal in Dublin.
The encampment had grown to 106 tents by Wednesday evening – a dramatic increase on the roughly 50 or so tents seen there on Saturday.
UPDATE: The Grand Canal tent encampment has grown to 106 tents by my count, up from 101 yesterday. pic.twitter.com/DrUrtyLoWF
— Ben Scallan 🇮🇪 (@Ben_Scallan) May 8, 2024
According to authorities, the purpose of the operation is “to ensure the safe movement of people seeking international protection from the tents on the Grand Canal to International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS)-designated accommodation.”
They specify that the IPAS-designated accommodation has toilets and showers, health services, indoor areas where food is provided, facilities to charge phones and personal devices, access to transport to and from Dublin City Centre, and 24-hour onsite security.
The operation – which began around 6:30 a.m. this morning – has resulted in all of the tents being cleared and the adult male migrants who had been resident in the tents leaving on 5 organised buses.
Notably, the Dáil was told on Wednesday that tent migrants were being offered increased daily expense allowances if they left the Grand Canal area.
The tent clearing comes after last Wendesday, when around 200 tents were cleared from around the International Protection Office (IPO) on Mount Street in a similar operation. At that time, metal barriers were erected by Gardaí to prevent more tents being set up, as they cited public order legislation.
THIS MORNING: Mount Street tent city being cleared by Dublin City Council workers. A Garda told Gript that metal barriers were being erected under a Section 21 order of the Public Order act. pic.twitter.com/fvu26h14hH
— gript (@griptmedia) May 1, 2024
At that time, Tánaiste Micheál Martin insisted that the government had the power to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said that "the State has within its power the capacity to make sure that we don't have tents back up on Mount Street", adding that the situation is "not acceptable for migrants" & that government has a "determination" to ensure it won't happen again. pic.twitter.com/jwLeNNnuBF
— gript (@griptmedia) May 1, 2024
Taoiseach Simon Harris also made similar commitments.
"We do not live in a country where makeshift shantytowns are allowed to just develop," Taoiseach Simon Harris has said, referring to asylum seekers in tents.https://t.co/t5HSzMBXh9
— Ben Scallan 🇮🇪 (@Ben_Scallan) May 1, 2024
However, after the Mount Street site was cleared, the Grand Canal site appeared within days just a 4 minute walk away, directly around the corner from the IPO building.
“It’s not a solution – it’s literally just moving the problem": Just days after the asylum seeker tent city on Mount Street was cleared by authorities, a further 50 tents have appeared just around the corner.
Gript spoke to locals about the situation:https://t.co/2L9tRWsqo8
— gript (@griptmedia) May 4, 2024
Updates to follow.