Phoenix Park and Army barracks urged as alternative sites for asylum-seekers living in tents at Grand Canal

The Phoenix Park, Army barracks and other State facilities should be considered as emergency alternatives to the tent encampments that have been pitched on the Grand Canal in Dublin by people seeking asylum, local councillors have said.

More than 70 tents occupied by migrants lined the Grand Canal at the weekend close to the International Protection Office (IPO) on Lower Mount Street, where encampments had been cleared last week after Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Dáil that he would not allow “makeshift shanty towns” to develop on the streets.

The Government has no immediate plans to remove the tents from the canal, though sources stressed that they could not stay there “indefinitely… it won’t go on for months”.

It is understood that new sources of accommodation for asylum seekers are expected to be identified soon, but it was unclear on Sunday if there would be sufficient places available to accommodate all the men inhabiting the tents or when these might be available.

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The new venues for accommodation are likely to be State lands where tents and temporary facilities can be sited or unused buildings owned by the State. There is reluctance to identify any potential sites until local consultation has taken place. One person involved in the process in Government said there was “nothing imminent at this point”.

In the longer term, the expectation at the top of Government is that a large number of people are likely to be placed in tents on State lands while accommodation pressures persist. Sources stressed the efforts under way to accelerate the processing of asylum applications were key to alleviating these pressures.

Local Labour councillor Dermot Lacey said the Government “doesn’t seem to know what to do” to address the situation but that it needed to rapidly devise a solution.

“The State does own properties. There’s Baggot Street Hospital, there are barracks around the city, there are parts of Phoenix Park that could be used, but we can’t have people setting up encampments on the streets around the city like this for health and safety reasons, and for the men’s own safety,” he said.

The South Georgian Core Residents’ Association, which has about 150 members living in the wider area, said the IPO should not continue to operate at its current location.

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Independent councillor Mannix Flynn said he had “total empathy” with the residents, as well as businesses and workers in the area at present, but that moving the office would just serve to “shift the problem onto other neighbours”. He said he was not quite clear why the men wanted to camp close to the office. He also raised the possibility of using a barracks or the Phoenix Park as a more humane temporary solution.

Green Party councillor Hazel Chu said she understood the residents’ concerns, but that the office was in a central location for good reason. “There are other people going to that location,” she said. “There are residents in centres that are travelling in, asylum seekers coming in on the day to get processed, and other people who might need access to the office, that’s why it’s in a central location.”

However, she said there may be need for “back-up emergency processing bases” and that more accommodation similar to that in Crooksling – tented accommodation with food and sanitary services which people were moved to from outside the IPO last week – was needed as an interim solution while indoor spaces were found.

[ Asylum seekers sleeping in tents by Grand Canal say they have nowhere else to go ]

Dublin City Council said dealing with issues along the canal was the responsibility of Waterways Ireland. Waterways Ireland and the Office of Public Works had not responded to queries on Sunday evening.

In a statement, the Government said it was “making every effort to accommodate asylum seekers in Ireland against a backdrop of unprecedented demand. However, the situation remains challenging and the department cannot provide accommodation to all applicants.”

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