Multi-agency operation to move people from Mount Street

A multi-agency operation is under way to move people from Mount Street in Dublin, where they have been living in tents.

Gardaí, the HSE and Dublin City Council are all involved.

Asylum seekers have been sleeping rough outside the International Protection Office on the city centre street after the Government stopped providing State accommodation to international protection applicants.

Part of Mount Street has been closed off to traffic and pedestrians this morning.

People who have been sleeping in tents are gathering beside buses parked in the middle of the road.

Contractors, some wearing protective clothing, are starting to clear the tents from the street.

A large garda presence is in place.

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Dublin Bus services are diverting around the street closure.

Yesterday, Taoiseach Simon Harris said that once asylum seekers sleeping on the street are given accommodation, the encampment will not be allowed to return.

He was replying to Labour leader Ivana Bacik in the Dáil, who said it was “absolutely scandalous” that the former Baggot Street hospital site was empty when people were living in tents on Mount Street without access to sanitation.

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said the Government had been working “day and night” to provide accommodation for those seeking International Protection and homeless people.