No access to Crooksling
Volunteers say they were not allowed give food to refugees in camp
VOLUNTEERS have been denied access to the Crooksling site where migrants were moved to, with complaints from the camp that they have insufficient food.
Róisín McAleer, a volunteer with Social Rights Ireland, said they attempted to bring food to the asylum seekers on St Patrick’s Day but they were refused entry.
Around 130 male asylum seekers had been moved to the site of the former St Brigid’s nursing home outside Tallaght on Saturday morning from the inner city where they were camping.
The Department of Integration has said they were moved for health and safety reasons and not because of the St Patrick’s Day parade. Over 1,300 male asylum seekers have been left without accommodation upon arrival in Ireland since December, with many sleeping in tents at the International Protection Office on Mount Street.
Ms McAleer said the volunteers were not allowed to give the migrants food they had prepared for them on St Patrick’s Day, due to health and safety reasons. She remarked: ‘They’re saying that there is not enough food and that they are hungry. They’re saying there aren’t enough toilets and showers.’
She said the volunteers were met with ‘extreme hostility’ from the officials guarding the gates.
The male asylum seekers are still sleeping in tents in Crooksling after an arson attack last month left substantial damage to the building which has been idle since 2020.
Around 20 of the men made their way back into the city centre on Saturday after discovering they were going to be sleeping in tents again at the site of the former nursing home. Ms McAleer said of the Crooksling site: ‘The huge big gates were locked up with a padlock, we couldn’t get in and they couldn’t get out. It was locked from 7pm.’
She said they did not have any lights around their tents, and the men were not given any tarpaulins to cover their tents. She added: ‘There is very little communication because the asylum seekers are relying on what [phone] data they have, but their phones are running out of battery because they have nowhere to charge them indoors.’
Ms McAleer said it was ‘very limited’ access to electricity ‘whereas before, in Mount Street, they could go to any of the homeless day services’. She added: ‘They were told they were getting accommodation, they weren’t told they were going to be handed a tent, so under a false impression they went along with it on the coaches. Some of them are staying there as they hope it’s the next step to better accommodation, but it doesn’t look like it.’ Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman said he made the decision to move the asylum seekers while on his work trip to Japan, but admitted the men were not consulted about where they were going. A spokesman for the Department of Integration has said that the Crooksling site ‘includes clean toilets and showers on site, as well as indoor areas for eating where food is provided, as well as facilities to charge phones and personal devices’. ‘In addition transport is also being arranged by the department to provide a link with the city centre.’ The spokesman added that health services will be on site during the week, and the International Protection Accommodation Service will hold a clinic. ‘There is security on site to ensure the safety of International Protection applicants; however, the department can engage with volunteer groups who wish to welcome those staying at the site.’
Lucky Khambule from the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland said that housing men in tents was ‘against the human rights of people that seek international protection’. He said the Government need to do more to house people who arrive here.
He also said he expects tents to accumulate at the Mount Street site again as more men arrive.
Ms McAleer said Social Rights Ireland wanted the migrants to be moved from the Mount Street area, but they should have been moved to a vacant building and not to an isolated site to remain in tents. She said: ‘We have been calling for opening up empty beds, and recently empty buildings. We would never resist that.
‘There are plenty of empty buildings around the area of Baggot street, even all across Dublin and Ireland, we want those buildings to be opened.’
She said they want to see the old Baggot Street hospital site
‘There is not enough food’ ‘Health and security risks’
which has been vacant, to be ‘quickly made livable’.
Ms McAleer said that while it was not for her to decide who was an economic migrant and who has a reasonable case for asylum, ‘for the genuine people, why should everybody be punished?’
She said there are people who are sleeping rough who should be seen by torture and trauma counsellors. Ms McAleer said that her group are not a charity, and she doesn’t want to make another call out for tents if they risk losing thousands of euros of camping equipment again.
She said that thousands of euros worth of campaign equipment provided by herself and other donors as well as local businesses were destroyed this weekend.
A spokesman for the Department said: ‘The site at Mount Street was cleared in cooperation with Dublin City Council due to the emerging public health and security risks.’