Dublin asylum seekers facing freezing cold and violence sleeping rough
ASYLUM seekers forced to sleep rough in freezing temperatures say they are seeing a rising tide of racial tensions and violence on the streets.
This week Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin said he is ‘very concerned’ about the risks associated with newly arrived asylum seekers having to sleep rough.
Mr Martin was speaking after it was confirmed the State is no longer able to offer accommodation to all new international protection (IP) applicants, some of whom now have to access homeless services for food and sleeping blankets.
Referring to the recent riots that caused carnage in the city, one asylum seeker who has been in Ireland for years said the violence that erupted on November 23 was ‘like a time bomb’ waiting to explode.
The man, who gave his name as AK, told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘Of course the riots were going to come; it was only a matter of time. People were just waiting for a chance to get like this.
‘I wasn’t surprised at all. They got into a panic with social media. Everywhere, people were sitting in front of their screen and then coming together.
‘They see someone who’s been here for 25 years and still on the street and they say, “What are you doing? It’s time to pack your bags.” I understand their anger, but the problem is they let their anger out on materials [by looting].’
AK is one of several asylum seekers who use the Tiglin At The Lighthouse shelter in Dublin’s Pearse Street, which provides food, blankets and sleeping bags for the homeless.
Mohand Ouamar, who arrived here from Algeria just over a year ago and volunteers at the shelter, has felt the brunt of rising racial tensions in the city.
One night, after finishing work at the shelter, he was brutally attacked by a gang of young men.
‘Seven or eight guys came up to me and said, “who are you? Where are you from?”
‘I said I was from Algeria and one of the guys threw a bottle of Coke in my face, and another guy hit me with a bottle of beer.
‘After I cleaned my face and glasses another guy pushed me. It’s impossible to resist eight people.
‘For 10 or 20 minutes these guys pulled me and pushed me to the floor. I had three ribs broken and then the guys stole my bag.
‘I received lots of punches and ran a long distance away and in this moment I touched my face and there was blood. I stopped three or four taxis to take me to hospital and no one accepted me. The gardaí finally came and took me there.’
Despite his harrowing experience, Mohand stresses he has otherwise been treated well here. And he says he can understand people’s concerns about the rising number of asylum seekers arriving in the country.
‘The Irish have received new people for a long time, but this time is different,’ he told the MoS.
‘The country received almost a million people in a few years. It’s very difficult for them to accept this situation. It’s not just 100 or 200 people; it’s almost a million new people and all from different countries, and many are refugees.
‘I work with homeless people here and I meet people who have [had] problems, but some live here in a good situation with no problems and no fights.’
According to AK, the Government is partly to blame for rising anti-immigrant sentiment, saying they have also failed Irish homeless.
‘The Government should have sorted out their own people sleeping on the streets.
‘You know what they say in my country? “Before you bring guests, clean your house.” You can’t say that everything elsewhere is a mess and that people can just come here. It doesn’t work like that.
‘Something’s wrong here. Ireland’s full. It’s completely the Government’s responsibility.
‘The Ukrainians are being put in hotels and houses and people here have been homeless for five or 10 years. What are they doing? So many buildings are empty but they don’t care.
‘Who wants to see homeless people? Even homeless people don’t like seeing people in a tent.’
Despite being an asylum seeker in Ireland for 10 years since arriving here from Malawi, Ben Msamange is more optimistic.
‘I have faith that things are going to change,’ he said.
‘Countries have ups and downs but everything’s going to change and everything’s going to be fine.
‘I applied for asylum here, but I’m still waiting for it. I was a student before but now I’m waiting to get my status and then I can settle down. Right now I’m homeless. You just stay anywhere you can, in a McDonald’s or something, until it’s morning. I’m just waiting for things to work out.’
Until recently, the Tiglin At The Lighthouse shelter served around 80 people daily, but this has rocketed to up to 500 in recent weeks as more and more asylum seekers who find themselves without accommodation access their services. Aubrey McCarthy, who set up Tiglin At The Lighthouse in an old bus parked on O’Connell Street back in 2006, said queues now start forming outside the shelter at least half an hour before it opens. He told the MoS: ‘Crowd control, we never did it before. But now we have security on the gate.
‘We have done this for 15, 16 years, we’ve always fed about 80 people per day. This has now increased to anything from 400 to 500. That increase has been in the last six or seven months.
‘When the [Department of Integration] announcement [that drop-in day services will be available to unaccommodated IP applicants] came out, I literally rang my chef and said, “make sure you prepare an extra 50 meals”, because you can’t turn people away.’
The manager at the shelter, Allen Bonnie, said they are anticipating an even bigger increase in demand.