Irish Independent

Calamity awaits if Government keeps its head in sand over capital’s ‘shanty town’

- KEVIN BYRNE Kevin Byrne is a member of Dublin City Council’s Housing Strategic Policy Committee

In his first speech as leader of Fine Gael, Simon Harris talked of a “firmer” migration system and having “pride again in our capital” – the test of that will be whether he lets the huge asylum-seeker tent encampment on Lower Mount Street continue any longer. As a proud resident of Dublin city centre I am appalled to see how the Government’s failed migration policy is disfigurin­g our nation’s capital. This policy failure has created a large tent encampment of Internatio­nal Protection Applicants (IPAs) around the Internatio­nal Protection Office (IPO) on Lower Mount Street for the third time in 12 months, leading to a humanitari­an crisis for the 170 men there and an intolerabl­e situation for local residents and businesses.

People are now avoiding the area and businesses are at risk of closure because it is such a struggle for them to stay trading with what is around them. Local residents are sympatheti­c with the men in the tent encampment­s and have tried to live with this situation, but this has gone on for over a year now and people’s patience can only go so far.

In a joint-letter to the media last week, 20 residents who live adjacent to the encampment described in distressin­g terms how they have experience­d their “living conditions deteriorat­e drasticall­y over the last couple of months” as their “buildings are encircled by tents to the extent that people on the ground floor cannot put their hand outside their window without touching a tent”.

Their biggest frustratio­n has “been met with silence when we have contacted the authoritie­s for assistance”, with Integratio­n Minister Roderic O’Gorman’s office completely uncontacta­ble and unresponsi­ve. The encampment is now spreading through the wider area and if let grow further all control will be lost. Dublin risks being permanentl­y blighted by downtown tent encampment­s like in San Francisco. I assume Mr Harris doesn’t want that to be his legacy.

There have been understand­able but unhelpful calls to look at emergency-type sanitation interventi­ons at the IPO. But Lower Mount Street is not an appropriat­e place for a massive encampment of over 100 tents that is rapidly becoming a shanty town.

Since the middle of last month a structured, state-provided emergency option has been in operation at Crooksling in Co Dublin with security, sanitation and basic services. While some people have relocated there, the tent encampment in the city has been allowed to continue and to grow.

The encampment now needs to be fully cleared. The men currently in tents at the IPO need to be moved to designated facilities like Crooksling, and no further tents should be allowed to be pitched on public streets. While Crooksling is still only an emergency response, public health groups working with the IPAs are clear that it is much better than sleeping on the streets.

And if the shanty town continues to grow further there will be calamity, for both the men there, and our capital. Despite the growing health and safety dangers, it appears that State agencies interactin­g with these asylum-seekers are not directing and transporti­ng them to Crooksling, so the shanty town grows daily.

This isn’t good enough. The agencies responsibl­e need to take charge. One school of thought is that Government has deliberate­ly let the tent encampment emerge as a deterrent, but given the 72pc increase in IP applicatio­ns so far this year it’s clear this is not having any deterrent effect. All it has done is create a health and safety crisis for IPAs and nearby residents, while defacing our city and fuelling tensions.

On this major Dublin thoroughfa­re in and out of the city, only a few minutes walk from where Mr Harris was elected as Taoiseach, the ever-growing shanty town is a visible symbol of an inadequate IP system and a lack of pride in our capital. The Government urgently needs to task someone with actually physically controllin­g the site and working to clear it. The buck-passing between the various agencies needs to end.

An aspect of this crisis that hasn’t received enough attention is that by dumping over 1,700 asylum-seekers on the streets, the Government has undermined years of hard work by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) and charities to keep rough sleeper numbers in Dublin low (usually less than 100), despite the intense housing crisis and resulting homelessne­ss crisis.

For the last three years I’ve been an outside member of the city’s housing committee, which also monitors the city’s homeless services, and I’ve seen the amazing work that staff and volunteers do to keep our citizens sheltered when relationsh­ips break up, tenancies end or unemployme­nt strikes.

This work has not been easy. The current system which puts hundreds of men on our streets only for the Government to then walk away is a derelictio­n of duty that insults all the hard work that has taken place. If the new Taoiseach wants to show he has pride in our capital he needs to start on Lower Mount Street.

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