At one of the busiest traffic intersections in the State, where Dublin’s Finglas Road meets the M2 and intersects with the M50, up to a dozen people are living in makeshift camps.
Some have been here for years, having laid gravel paths and lengths of carpet between makeshift shelters, chairs and locked food-storage containers, while others are in dank, filthy underpasses strewn with rubbish, needles and human excrement.
All say they would like something better but seem hopeless about any improvement.
By a patch of ground reached by scrambling up a steep, stony path from three lanes of motorway traffic are four wheelie bins, provided, say those living here, by Dublin City Council.
Beyond a waist-high fence is a path bordered with small kindling-logs leading into a small clearing, with tarpaulin-topped shelters. Michael, in his 30s, has lived here for two years.
Reticent at first to talk, he explains this is his “space” and “too many people come to use drugs and then f**k off”. They don’t “respect my home”.
By his shelter is a chiminea stove. There are chairs, a table, a firepit and an area to hang clothes. Over the course of about five minutes, four large rats run through the area, which is surrounded by bushes and is subject to the constant sound of traffic.
“It’s kind of well-organised,” says Michael. “Four of us live here.” Putting his dog on a lead, he says the animal “keeps the rats away”. Though the bins were provided by the council he says they do not collect them, so he and others burn rubbish.
“I found this place. I put my tent here a few years ago and that was it. It’s not much to look at but it’s a home. It’s not too bad today, but in the winter it’s bad.”
Also living here is a younger man, also called Michael. Aged 27, he has reddish-blonde hair and a dark, circular smoking stain on his front teeth. He is begging from cars at traffic lights in nearby Charlestown.
“I am in that camp a few years,” he says. “I am used to it by now. The rats are desperate though. They are coming more and more and they are coming closer and closer.”
He is from Meath and a trained mechanic, he says. He smokes “gear” (heroin). He would “love” to get off drugs and into accommodation.
“The [Dublin] Simon [rough-sleeper outreach team] come out to us, talk to us. They are trying to help us. They said they’d get somewhere but they were trying to split us all up and we don’t want that.”
Local independent councillor Gavin Pepper, who came to public prominence for his anti-immigration positions and was elected to Dublin City Council last year, has known Michael for several years, from meeting him at traffic lights begging.
“He is such a lovely young fella, in such a sad situation, that really as a society we should be able to get on top of.”
Across four lanes of traffic from the first camp a grassy, rocky area is reached by clambering over thigh-high fencing. Beneath roads carrying thousands of cars daily, in long, dark tunnels, are more people’s homes.
Philip (56), from Co Wexford, returned from hospital a few weeks ago to find his tent and belongings “all burned”.
His new tent, for which he paid €30, is pitched at one tunnel’s end. Walking to it entails stepping over wet, dirty ground strewn with discarded needles, dirty food containers, discarded clothes, drinks cans and human excrement. A foul odour is overpowering at times.
“I am trying to clean it and have it the way I want it,” says Philip. “I am in here on my own.”
He had been homeless “a while” during which he has had some “bad hidings”. Looking a lot older than his age he has fresh wounds on his head and is missing several teeth.
“I feel safe here. I have sleeping bags and little solar lights I charge up during the day.” Apologising for the rubbish, he says he has “just moved in” and “will clean all this”.
He will not take a place in a hostel. “No, no, no – too dangerous. I have been in a few hostels. It’s not the hostels. There are lovely people working there but there are dangerous people. I have been held up at knifepoint, at needlepoint. It’s just too dangerous for someone like me. I sleep easier here.”
Most of his clothes were in the tent that was set alight while he was in hospital. “I bought myself a top there in the village earlier on. Talk about value for money,” he says putting on a black and white sweater. “It is proper North Face – just €10. To me that is great ... I only buy what I need because if I have too much it gets robbed.”
Asked how he spends his day, he says: “I get up in the morning, go to McDonald’s there and wash my hands. Whatever, get a bit of breakfast, get out and about. I walk everywhere.”
A former construction worker, he says he was “hit by a truck three or four years ago” and “my leg was shattered”.
“I would 100 per cent like to get out of this. I have had a lot of struggle. I had nervous breakdowns, blackouts.
“I would need a bit of help but if I had that, no problem. I’d need a bit of a start. I do get depressed. I know I am depressed but I don’t want just anything, just any medication. If I was on a proper antidepressant I would probably take it. But I haven’t had it for a few years.”
Tents are visible in other tunnels, one of which is occupied by two people who do not wish to talk.
Cllr Pepper says their plight “breaks [his] heart”. Some of those living here would be ideal candidates for the stalled Housing First programme, he says, where entrenched rough-sleepers are provided with own-door housing along with wraparound supports to help sustain their tenancy.
Though almost 300 such tenancies were to be created between this and next year just 10 have been so far, due to problems with the procurement process.
Separately, a specialist addiction service for homeless drug-users, operated by Dublin Simon, has been able to operate just 49 of its 100 beds due to a funding shortfall. Though the Health Service Executive has committed to fund 12 more beds by next month, the charity “remains focused on securing funding, as per the Government’s commitment, for 100 beds”.
“Vulnerable people deserve so much better than this,” says Cllr Pepper. “They deserve [drug addiction] treatment, they deserve safe homes. In a country that is awash with money, how can this be allowed to happen?”
Dublin Simon, which also operates the rough-sleeper outreach service, is “aware of the people rough sleeping at Charlestown”.
It “is collaborating with the local authority to best support these clients. Our care- and case-management teams are actively supporting those located there and are prioritising harm reduction for these clients.
“We are regularly engaging with and supporting the clients based here, despite access to the area being challenging.”
Dublin City Council said the outreach team at Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) was “aware of these locations” and was “meeting with the people rough sleeping and encouraging them to take up accommodation options”.
“Access to the M50 locations is quite challenging, Dublin Simon Outreach and the DRHE are in touch with the relevant sections in Fingal County Council to gain safer access,” said the council.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said it and the HSE were committed to working in partnership with Dublin Simon to ensure that the publicly-funded community care facility opens on a phased basis.
“There is no funding shortfall for the opening of the Dublin Simon community care facility for people who are homeless,” he said.
“To date, the department has provided an additional €4.9 million for the operating costs of the new facility in 2025, on top of an additional €1 million in 2024, a combined total of €5.9 million."
He said it was the largest single investment by the department in healthcare services for people who are homeless.
