Up to 30 tents pitched along the Grand Canal in Dublin city center just hours after migrant camp was removed

Some 30 tents have been erected after asylum seekers were moved to tented accommodation on state-owned sites yesterday.

Tents have been set up between the McCartney Bridge and the Leeson Street Bridge in the area.

In the early hours of yesterday morning, a multi-state agency effort was launched to relocate a total of 163 people to state-provided accommodation in Crooksling and on the site of the former Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum.

The makeshift camp had developed along the Grand Canal following the removal of a “tent city” located on Mount Street, near the international protection office.

The effort also saw more than 100 tents removed and barriers placed to prevent further erection.

Six hours after the authorization, tents were also erected in Ringsend and East Wall.

Speaking at a press conference shortly after the clearing operation on the Grand Canal yesterday, Taoiseach Simon Harris said the camps that developed would not be allowed to remain.

“Those days are gone. Those days are over. That’s not going to happen and the Government is absolutely united on this,” the Taoiseach said.

Harris insisted that the barriers erected along the banks of the canal after the tents were removed were not a long-term plan.

“The multi-agency response involves a number of different actions being taken.

“It doesn’t involve building long-term barriers in parts of our city, but in the short term that may be a requirement,” Harris said.

In the Dáil yesterday, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said tenting would be addressed “wherever it arises”.

“It is not good for immigrants, nor for asylum seekers, nor for residents, nor for the area in general. “I think it’s just not acceptable,” Mr. Martin said.

“There is a determined plan to address tenting wherever it arises.”

The latest tent camp emerged as the Government has said it will urgently focus on finding suitable sites for the accommodation of asylum seekers to prevent a repeat of tent camps.

HSE properties, land owned by the Department of Defense and sites previously ruled out for housing are among state-owned sites to be considered, a meeting of Taoiseach Simon Harris and agencies involved in the asylum system was told yesterday .

At the meeting, the Taoiseach firmly insisted that a “siloed approach” by government departments – where the problem is largely left to Roderic O’Gorman’s integration officers – is to “stop now”.

A spokesman said the urgent focus would be to free up more state land to accommodate arrivals.

This would even include sites selected by the Land Development Agency for housing, but not considered suitable for such development.

A particular target appears to be abandoned land near the city center because that is where newcomers want to congregate.

A source close to the multi-agency meeting after the Grand Canal operation said yesterday morning: “There is a deep awareness that the feeling among migrants seems to be that the quickest way to solve the problem is to join that environment “.