New accommodation for asylum seekers to be offered

New offers of accommodation are expected to come on stream this week in order to end the erection of tents along the Grand Canal bank in Dublin, not far from the International Protection Office.

It’s understood that additional capacity has been identified to assist asylum seekers who currently do not have a place to stay.

In tandem, the government is understood to be focusing on acquiring State-owned land in order to set-up tented accommodation for future arrivals.

This is expected to take a number of weeks to complete in order to ensure that adequate facilities are on the new sites.

Taoiseach Simon Harris has already convened a multi-agency and multi-departmental group to overcome any logistical problems.

It’s currently unclear, however, how many places will be made available this week; where they are located; and how the asylum seekers will be contacted.

Asylum seekers pitched around 70 tents along the canal, just days after over 100 tents were moved from around the office on Mount Street.

The reappearance of tents close to Mount Street is politically sensitive, given Taoiseach Simon Harris told the Dáil last week that what he called “makeshift shanty towns” would not be allowed to develop again.