Asylum-seekers flock to Dublin’s tent city to avoid Rwanda scheme
Deportation threat sparked 30% jump in immigration
Abdul Mhammed, a 20-year-old migrant from Sudan, was until recently sleeping in a tent on a street in the heart of Georgian Dublin, one of the most affluent areas of Ireland’s capital.
He was camped along with hundreds of others near the International Protection Office – Ireland’s asylum processing centre – until being moved out of the city to temporary accommodation arranged by the authorities in the suburbs.
Mhammed’s presence, and that of hundreds of others, has prompted major concern in the Republic.
Ireland has traditionally been relatively welcoming to foreigners seeking shelter but an influx of migrants in the past three years, with 141,600 arriving in 2023 (a jump of 30%), has seen tensions rise in the country. Ireland’s poorest residents increasingly feel they are being overlooked on housing and benefits.
The rise in immigration has many factors, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the one that is causing greatest concern among residents and politicians alike is a symptom of Brexit.
Mhammed, and many migrants like him, have crossed the Channel to reach the UK, before moving on to Ireland in order to avoid deportation to Rwanda. And because there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic thanks to the Northern Ireland Protocol drafted as part of the Brexit agreement, there is little anyone can do to stop them.
For Mhammed, it is a haven. “I am more confident about my position here than I am in the UK,” he said.
“Here, they don’t say anything. The UK says ‘go to Rwanda’. The UK is safe, but now it says to go to Rwanda and it is not safe. If the UK was not saying anything, I would not come here.”
Compared to the perils of reaching the UK, the route to Ireland was simple. Mhammed, who arrived in the UK in 2022, was informed he faced deportation to East Africa, prompting him to take a bus from London to Liverpool and then a ferry to Belfast, before getting a second bus to Dublin.
His story is typical of the situation in Ireland that has seen shanty town encampments spring up on Dublin’s streets, arson attacks on premises rumoured to be used to house immigrants, and demonstrations outside politicians’ homes.
On Thursday evening, demonstrators protested outside the home of newly appointed Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Simon Harris as he was putting his young children to bed. He lives in a housing estate in Co Wicklow, just south of Dublin, and the demonstrators we seen holding banners with slogans which included “close the borders”, “house the Irish first” and “Eire will no longer be run by EU puppets”.
Incidents like this would have been very rare occurrences in Ireland until immigration became a subject that has been dominating Irish politics and everyday conversations in recent months. The subject thrust Ireland onto the world stage when on November 23 last year riots broke out around O’Connell Street, the capital’s main thoroughfare.
They were sparked by an incident when a homeless man attacked and injured three children and a care assistant outside a school and rumour quickly spread that he was an illegal immigrant. Anti-immigration agitators spread word via social media and messaging apps and withing hours looting had broken out, buses and trams had been set alight and the gardai were attacked.
And in the early hours of New Year’s Eve a disused hotel in the Dublin docklands area of Ringsend was set on fire after there had been several demonstrations at the site fuelled by rumours that it was to be used to house refugees. In fact, the building had actually been taken over by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive to accommodate homeless families.
Meanwhile the problem has also sparked a row between London and Dublin. Rishi Sunak has rejected demands by Harris – to take back the asylum-seekers – unless the EU agrees to receive migrants who have arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel. Then a plan by Ireland to send police officers to the border to stop migrants entering the country triggered a further row.
The Irish government had announced that 100 police officers are to be redeployed to front-line immigration enforcement duties in border areas after ministers claimed up to 90% of asylum-seekers arriving
in Dublin had come via Northern Ireland. But that prompted Sunak to warn Harris he must not create checkpoints or introduce a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Worryingly, that move by the Republic has sparked wider security concerns in Northern Ireland, where Unionists would welcome a return to a hard border, while Nationalists are vehemently and potentially violently opposed to any such moves.
On Friday it was reported that Downing Street had offered Ireland the opportunity to join the Rwanda scheme. A Downing Street source said: “If the Irish government believes the Rwanda plan is already having an effect, we can explore Ireland joining the Rwanda scheme.”
Meanwhile, Ireland’s Department of Justice said: “Ireland and the UK share a common interest in the effective operation of the Common Travel Area, and work closely together to prevent any abuses of the Common Travel Area.”
But the mood music is not so sanguine among the people in a country not averse to violent uprising.