“I don’t know where I will go. It is not safe on the streets.”
Asylum seekers have described how they have no bed to sleep in and are living on the streets, despite suffering health ailments.
It comes after a tent encampment outside the International Protection Office in Dublin was closed down.
A day later though, a number of men told RTÉ they had missed the opportunity to board the buses and remained on the streets.
A man from Zimbabwe, in Ireland since 21 December, said: “I am a Christian so I go to Christian friends, sometimes they can take you in and sometimes they can’t and you go on the streets. That’s how it goes.”
He was not on Mount Street when it was cleared this week but afterwards made his own way to Crooksling.
“When we heard some people had been taken there that’s when we made our way with some other guys there,” he said.
“And then told it was full to capacity. I tried to talk to the guys and they said at the moment they were full to capacity but when accommodation is available they will let us know.”
The last email he has received, he said, from International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) was on 16 April, after he had sent them an email letting them know his medical condition.
“My right hand is numb so the doctor told me he cannot refer me to a physiotherapist until I have permanent accommodation,” he explained.
“So I wrote them an email and they replied at the moment they don’t have accommodation.
“It is painful from my shoulder, so I have been seeing a doctor on Eccles Street. He said ‘I have to see a physio’ but at the moment I am surviving on painkillers.”
‘I heard this was a nice place to come’
Another asylum seeker without accommodation was from Ghana and had been sleeping on the streets for two months.
He was in the city centre when the tents were cleared on Wednesday, but had been sleeping on Mount Street previously.
Asked why he chose to come to Ireland and not a different country, he said: “I hear if you come here you can seek asylum, they want to help you.
“I checked it on internet and heard this was a nice place for me to come, so that was it.”
‘No place here’
A man from Jordan said he was on Mount Street and boarded a bus for Citywest where he waited four or five hours. After that he was told “no place here” and “go to street”.
The man, who is aged 47, slept outside the International Protection Office on Wednesday night.
He said there were 16 men sleeping outside the offices on Wednesday night, despite the closure of the encampment. He had no tent or sleeping bag, and just his clothes to keep warm.
“Two months I am here, in the tent,” he said.
“I don’t know where I will go. It is not safe on the streets.”
Another man, aged 52 from Somalia, arrived on 28 February.
He told RTÉ: “I have been staying on the streets. Around the GPO, Dundrum, anywhere where I think it will be comfortable for me. It is really hard, very difficult.
“Those picked from here yesterday some of them I see them back here today.”
He was planning to sleep again at the GPO and said he has health issues that have been ignored.
“I have been communicating with IPAS but actually the replies are automatic,” he said.
“No human being has ever replied to us. I am sick and have stated my situation so many times to them, but nothing forthcoming.
“I have formally blood pressure and even now I have chest problem.
“You know they are saying the asylum seeker are so many and the accommodation is a problem so I have to persevere. I have no other option.”
