Up to 30 tents pitched along Grand Canal day after 100 cleared

James Cox

Up to 30 tents sheltering homeless asylum seekers have been pitched along Dublin's Grand Canal, just one day after 100 tents were cleared from the area.

The tents are just a few hundred metres from where over 100 tents were cleared on Thursday.

One hundred and sixty asylum seekers who had been sleeping in tents along the Grand Canal were moved to alternative State-provided accommodation yesterday.

However, this morning at least 27 tents have appeared in another area of the canal, between the McCartney Bridge and the Leeson Street Bridge, just upstream from where the tents were removed yesterday.

An early morning operation on Thursday removed tents which had been pitched by asylum seekers along a stretch of the Grand Canal, Dublin. Photo: PA Images

A number of tents also sprung up in Ringsend on Thursday. However, the asylum seekers left after a number of locals told the migrants they were not welcome in the area.

The encampment along the Grand Canal followed one outside the International Protection Office (IPO) on Mount Street being cleared.

Speaking after the operation on Thursday, Taoiseach Simon Harris said that neither he, nor the Government, would accept tented encampments in the city.

Fences are erected following an early morning operation to remove tents which had been pitched by asylum seekers along a stretch of the Grand Canal, Dublin. Photo: PA Images

“It was not acceptable to me or to Government that there would be any source of tacit acceptance that what was happening at Mount Street was just okay, because it never was.

“And it became very close – and closer than many people may even realise – to becoming a real public health emergency.”

He added: "The days of people saying, ‘that’s not my issue, that’s for that department, that’s for that agency’ – I don’t want to hear it.

“This is Government. This is Ireland. This is Team Ireland.”