East Wall residents have blocked city centre traffic again this evening, vowing to continue with protests until the government closes the migrant centre they say has been imposed on the area.
Traffic was blocked at the Port Tunnel, at the busy 5 Lamps junction, at the Samuel Beckett bridge, and the East Link with protesters saying that while their aim was not to inconvenience motorists, their government had left them “no choice”.
“We are a community with a strong history of defending itself,” one woman at the protest with her family told Gript. “The government think they can bring hundreds of unvetted men in here without even consulting us because they think we just have to accept it. But we don’t, and we won’t.”
“People are out here tonight in the freezing cold, we’re all locals, there’s families and grannies here,” she said. “We won’t have the politicians who’ve messed up immigration dumping the problem on our community which is already struggling. They’re so arrogant, but we’re going to keep going until they listen.”
She strongly rejected the accusation of racism directed at the East Wall locals, saying it was being used by politicians to “shut the people up” – and that locals were “fully entitled to be heard, just as they would be listened to in Killiney or Ballsbridge”.
East Wall protestors marching down the Quays toward Dublin Port. Hundreds have braved the cold to vent their fustrations at the governments reluctance to close the ESB Building which is housing "Unvetted Migrants" #EastWall #diversitycrimeireland#clondalkin #cookstown pic.twitter.com/dSLdkZOcd0
— RM.tv🇮🇪 (@RealMessageEire) December 14, 2022
"We're not giving up": East Wall residents protest an asylum centre being imposed in the area again this evening despite freezing temperatures: halting traffic at the busy 5 lamps junction, and now moving to Samuel Beckett Bridge.#gript pic.twitter.com/j97rfwhkxL
— gript (@griptmedia) December 14, 2022
#eastwall blocking traffic at 5 lamps junction now pic.twitter.com/a5OKDYIkmo
— Teach Gruama (@Bleakhouse12) December 14, 2022
#EastWall going now towards quays. Lots of 'racist' bingo playing grannies and children in buggies out tonight 😅 pic.twitter.com/8YHc7q8X9O
— Teach Gruama (@Bleakhouse12) December 14, 2022
#EastWall Samuel Beckett Bridge blocked pic.twitter.com/1qgZRrPZXE
— Teach Gruama (@Bleakhouse12) December 14, 2022
East Wall Protest at 5 Lamps Junction this evening pic.twitter.com/hp7ETnscIe
— Lawyers For Justice Ireland (@LFJIreland) December 14, 2022
#eastwall blocking port now pic.twitter.com/hEjXamlJ6E
— Teach Gruama (@Bleakhouse12) December 14, 2022
Local resident, Malachy Steenson, said that those who were upset at the “rolling road blocks” and the “maximum disruption” they had caused should contact Minister Roderic O’Gorman who he said was “directly responsible” for bringing the East Wall residents onto the streets.
The East Wall protests have now drawn consistently large numbers for the fourth week, and the accommodation crisis caused by the government’s decision not to cap refugee and migrant numbers seems to be worsening.