TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS has told the Dáil he intends to “clear” Mount Street in Dublin of tents and ensure that “makeshift shantytowns” are not allowed to develop again.
Around 200 people are currently sleeping in tents on Mount Street, Grattan Street and nearby alleyways.
A number of recent media reports have said the site, which is beside the International Protection Office, would be cleared in the coming days with plans afoot to move the men to other locations.
In the Dáil this afternoon, Harris said there are “two aspects” to the situation at Mount Street.
In the first instance, Harris remarked that there is a need to “provide all those vulnerable people living in tents with access to accommodation and a safer setting as quickly as possible”.
Harris said Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman is working “very actively on that with a number of other agencies and organisations”.
The Taoiseach then said the second aspect is that “once we clear Mount Street and provide people with a safer setting and access to sanitation, we need to make sure that the laws of the land are applied and it is not allowed to happen again”.
“We do not live in a country where makeshift shantytowns are allowed to just develop,” added Harris.
“I am saying very clearly the plan is to provide the people on Mount Street with better accommodation and access to sanitation and not to allow a situation where ‘ad hocery’ can come about in terms of the development of accommodation,” said Harris.
The Taoiseach was responding to a comment from Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who said the “makeshift shelters in desperately unsanitary conditions on Mount Street” were the “clearest evidence” that the government’s “immigration policy has failed”.
Bacik described the situation as “inhumane and unsustainable”.
Yesterday, a spokesperson for the Department of Integration said the accommodation situation “remains very challenging”, but would not comment on any moves to specific locations “due to security considerations and the requirement to maintain the right to privacy of international protection applicants”.
The tents on Mount Street were previously cleared on 16 March and many of the men were brought to a site in Crooksling in the Dublin Mountains.
This move was criticised by members of the opposition, who said it seemed as though the tents were primarily being cleared for the benefit of tourists ahead of St Patrick’s Day.
Some of the men stayed at Mount Street at the time or returned from Crooksling shortly after being moved.
Tents were back on the site later that day.
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