Dublin Fire Brigade and gardaí on Saturday night attended the third fire in three days at the former Crown Paints factory earmarked for international protection applicants in Coolock, north Dublin.
The fire, which had been brought under control by about 10pm, follows similar blazes at a lobby area of the property on Thursday and Friday nights.
“Two fire engines from Kilbarrack and North Strand fire stations are currently attending a fire at the former Crown Paints site,” Dublin Fire Brigade said in a statement at about 10pm on Saturday. “The fire is under control and firefighters are damping down. We expect to be finished soon.”
Gardaí believe arsonists have been scaling a concrete fence at the facility, setting fires and then leaving the site quickly before the flames and smoke take hold and are noticed. Although a three-metre-high line of concrete barriers was erected at the site in the early hours of Tuesday, they block the entrance only, with the rest of the site surrounded by a lower fence.
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The Garda has not placed any personnel inside the site as it is privately owned and a very large deployment of gardaí would be required to guarantee the safety of those personnel, which would be very costly and may be very difficult to step down in time.
There is now concern in the Garda that the disturbances seen on Malahide Road, where the site is located, over the last week, combined with the fires, underline the volatile security risks associated with keeping the former paint factory secure. Those security concerns were expected to heighten when work starts at the facility to prepare it as accommodation for about 500 international protection applicants.
A protest camp, which was on private grounds outside the former paint factory, was established in March to block workers from renovating the property. Just before 4am last Monday a Garda operation began to clear the protesters’ camp and move in construction equipment and materials, as well as security personnel.
However, petrol bombs were thrown and an excavator was destroyed by fire. There followed clashes between gardaí – including members of the Public Order Unit – and crowds that gathered at the location on Monday and Tuesday. Gardaí used riot shields and pepper sprays during those clashes, with a further deployment of the Public Order Unit on Friday evening.
That policing operation on Friday occurred to disperse crowds after a fire was set at the site and projectiles were thrown at gardaí. A peaceful protest had taken place in the area earlier on Friday, though a small number of people later gathered at the site later and trouble flared.
The fires on Thursday and Friday nights cased minimal damage to the lobby area of the building. It is understood the fire on Saturday night was also relatively minor, though the precise extent of the blaze was being assessed.
Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman said this week his department’s comprehensive accommodation strategy for asylum seekers was “working and delivering in its various strands” through the provision of State-owned land and expressions of interest for large buildings that could be “repurposed”.
He insisted plans to house up to 500 international protection applicants at the former Crown Paints facility would go ahead despite the clashes that resulted that now resulted in the arrests of 32 people, with 22 suspects having already appeared before the courts, mainly to face public order charges.
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