Waterways Ireland has started 24-hour patrols of the Grand Canal in Dublin to stop homeless asylum seekers from erecting tents and to ensure fencing erected to deter encampments is not torn down.
The all-Ireland body, which is responsible for the canal network, hopes the measure it describes as a “pilot programme” will allow it to remove the fencing in place along the canal banks since May.
Two security personnel, in bright red jackets, have been walking the length of the waterway from Grand Canal Street to the Portobello area since Tuesday.
Several homeless asylum seekers camped by the canal in Dublin 4 were told by the security patrol to leave the bank on Wednesday, say volunteers working with them.
In a statement posted on its website Waterways Ireland said the patrols were in place to “deter erection of illegal encampments” and “to deter criminal damage to Waterways Ireland property and fencing”. It added: “All instances of illegal encampments and criminal damage to property have been and continue to be reported to An Garda Síochána.”
It was “seriously concerned for the safety and health of people staying in tents by the canal” and had “met with representatives of local residents groups to listen to their concerns and to discuss how we might fully reopen the amenity of the canal. In order to achieve this a number of options are being explored, including the acceleration of a landscaping and biodiversity programme of works”.
From Tuesday, it said: “Waterways Ireland have introduced enhanced monitoring, whereby two security personnel will augment Waterways Ireland staff by patrolling the area on a 24-hour basis, to ensure health and safety and public health risks remain mitigated, to notify Gardai of any issues in real-time, to ascertain the pattern of when and how many encampments are taking place, and to advise any arrivals of the prohibition on staying in tents by the canal along with the associated health and safety and public health risks. This is a pilot programme which will be kept under review and is part of Waterways Ireland’s efforts to fully reopen the canal amenity.”
The new patrols come at the end of a summer punctuated by encampments of homeless male asylum seekers along the banks, multiple multiagency camp clearances, the erection of anti-camp fencing in late May and some of it being torn down by protesters in mid-July. The fencing was reinstated shortly after.
The fencing has been the subject of dozens of complaints to Waterways Ireland, including more than 90 between May and mid-August.
The Take Back Our Spaces Coalition, which protested against the fencing, described it as “exclusionary, racist and classist” and said it was being used to “weaponise the immigration issue” and to “divide working-class communities”.
As of Tuesday when the patrols began, there were 2,588 male asylum seekers “awaiting offer of accommodation”, according to figures from the Department of Integration.
Since December 4th the International Protection Accommodation Service is no longer providing accommodation to single, adult, male asylum seekers on presentation at the International Protection Office.
Waterways Ireland said further plans for the canal could be found in its Grand Canal Activation and Animation Plan that had been drawn up in conjunction with Dublin City Council.
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