Irish police start to dismantle Dublin's migrant ‘tent city’

1/5/2024 17:39

        Irish police started dismantling about 200 tents housing asylum seekers in Dublin early on Wednesday, tackling what has become a focal point for heated debate around migration.
        
        The government said police and other officials were removing migrants from tents that first appeared about a year ago on Mount Street in the centre of the capital and moving them into accommodation.
        
        Young men who live in tents are largely left alone in Dublin but there have been protests in smaller communities opposed to the number of migrants living in hotels and hostels.
        
        Prime Minister Simon Harris said on Tuesday people would not be allowed to return to the camp once it was cleared.
        
        "Once we clear Mount Street and provide people with a safer setting and access to sanitation, we need to make sure that the laws of the land are applied and it is not allowed to happen again because we do not live in a country where makeshift shantytowns are allowed to just develop," he said.