Over the past weekend, a considerable group of migrants established an encampment beside the Grand Canal’s Mount Street Bridge in Dublin, continuously moving around the city in a pattern that has now become almost habitual. About 28 tents could be seen on Sunday, housing mainly male asylum seekers who have recently arrived in Ireland and have yet to receive any state-offered accommodation.
Among them is a young 20-year-old Afghani man, known as Ikram, who was spotted on Sunday afternoon casually using his mobile phone. Wearing a black sweatshirt and sweatpants, he was barefoot as he communicated with a friend through Facetime on his phone. When inquired about his living situation, he smilingly denied being offered a place to stay by the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS), with whom he has shared his contact information. Despite his current situation, Ikram expressed a desire to work, although lamenting his lack of necessary documentation.
Ikram shared that his journey to Ireland, through France, took approximately five days. When asked if this was an unusually swift route to the country, he called over his cousin Sahil from the tent they were sharing. Sahil added that they had previously resided in Belgium for several years, and that their recent journey to Ireland also took five days.
The recent encampment at Mount Street Bridge comes after a clearance by the Garda of a makeshift camp in Irishtown on the previous Thursday. Earlier camps along the Grand Canal were systematically cleared by the joint efforts of Inland Waterways Ireland, responsible for the canal system, the Dublin City Council and the Garda.
However, as of Sunday, the Garda Press Office claimed to have no information regarding any plans to disperse the camp. Requests for comments were made to Waterways Ireland, Dublin City Council, and the Department of Justice.
Currently, the number of male international asylum applicants without housing has increased from just over 2,000 in early June to 2,400 last month and stands at 2,511 presently. These individuals, primarily from Afghanistan are repeatedly told that it is illegal to camp within the Dublin city limits, even as they receive tents from the government-funded service providers. Since the government initially cleared the tents in Mount Street Lower near the International Protection Office in March, this cycle of shifting and camping has been ongoing.
The British government has expressed intentions to review applications for international protection from Afghan nationals on compassionate grounds if they are slated for transfers to other EU nations under the Dublin III procedure. Nevertheless, the Asylum Information Database of the European Council of Refugees and Exiles claims that the application of these compassionate grounds remains ambiguous since the data on nationalities involved in the Dublin procedure is not easily accessible.
On Mespil Road, a group of protesters who participated in a demonstration outside the Department of Integration on Baggot Street Lower named ‘Take Back Our Spaces’ dismantled part of a fence erected by Waterways Ireland. This fence, extending from Portobello’s Windsor Terrace to Grand Canal Street near the Google office, was initially set up in late May following the eviction of over 100 asylum seekers from a waterside camp. Although the fence was briefly torn down in mid-July during a protest, police quickly restored it.
The Take Back Our Spaces Coalition has criticized this fencing, characterizing it as “classist”, “racist” and “exclusionary”; warning that the barriers are being exploited to “inflame the immigration issue” and “split working-class communities”. The All-Ireland Waterways Ireland institution, which is responsible for maintaining the fence, spends approximately €30,000 weekly on it. They acknowledged that the use of barriers in a public amenity is not ideal, but necessary, citing health and safety risks. The organisation claimed it’s exploring a potential solution in the form of a “landscaping programme”.