Irish authorities begin clearing ‘shanty town’ of asylum seekers

Irish police have begun clearing the “shanty town” of asylum seekers living in tents outside the International Protection Office in Dublin.

The operation to dismantle the so-called “tent city” housing about 200 migrants on lower Mount Street in the city centre began at 6.30 am on Wednesday.

Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Irish Parliament on Tuesday that the tents would be cleared and not be allowed to return.

“We need to make sure that the laws of the land are applied and it is not allowed to happen again because we do not live in a country where makeshift shanty towns are allowed to just develop,” he said.

He was responding to accusations that the tent city was proof his government had failed on migration.

The asylum seekers will be moved to safer, more sanitary accommodation, he said.

Mount Street where the tents were erected was closed to traffic with barriers blocking both ends of the street on Wednesday morning. Uniformed police, council officials and coaches to move the asylum seekers were at the scene, the Irish Independent reported.

Long lines of people waited patiently next to a convoy of at least five buses parked in the middle of the street, waiting to be moved on as dawn broke in Dublin.

In the early hours, police blocked off Mount Street in central Dublin and erected metal railings to keep pedestrians away while they carry out their operation outside the International Protection Office.

Vans loaded with metal barriers lined the street as men in white hazmat suits and face masks untied the tents and dragged them to the side of the kerb. Each tent was sprayed with a red X to mark them as evicted.

“It’s also really important that we don’t see scenes like we’re seeing now at Mount Street again, that it cannot re-emerge, that we have hundreds of tents – not just outside the international protection office – but outside people’s homes, outside people’s businesses,” said Helen McEntee, the justice minister, on Tuesday night.

The Irish government claims that up to 90 per cent of the people claiming asylum in Ireland this year had crossed into the country from the UK, across the border with Northern Ireland.

Rishi Sunak has refused to take back any asylum seekers, while Mr Harris insists the UK struck a returns agreement with Ireland in November 2020.

The Irish government passed legislation to facilitate the migrant returns. Dublin said it hoped the process would begin in weeks but the UK insists it will only take them back if the EU agrees to a bloc-wide migrant deal, which would allow Britain to send Channel migrants back to France.