Ireland is Dismantling Asylum Seeker Slums in a Dispute with Great Britain

Unlock Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Ireland demolished a sprawling tent city containing hundreds of asylum seekers in central Dublin on Wednesday amid an escalating row with the United Kingdom over migration.

The makeshift camp in the city’s elegant Georgian center had become a symbol of the country’s difficulties with its migration policy after it began offering accommodation only to asylum-seeking families rather than individuals amid housing shortages.

Irish ministers this week approved plans to close so-called “loopholes” in current legislation to allow asylum seekers arriving via Northern Ireland to be returned to the UK under an existing deal, something London has resisted.

Mohammed Saad Eissa, a 24-year-old Egyptian asylum seeker, said he was woken at 5am by police on the street in Dublin, where he had been camping since arriving from Belfast two days earlier. “They said they would take us,” he said.

Some of the all-male asylum seekers who had been camping there were put on buses. Activists said they believed they were being taken to a government-run site about 20 km away with tents, toilets and other facilities.

Saad Eissa spoke to the Financial Times from a taxi that he said was heading to a hotel where asylum seekers were staying. “I wanted to leave. There were no toilets, no showers,” he said. “It would be good if that’s what they say.”

The first operation to clear what Taoiseach Simon Harris has described as “makeshift slums” near government buildings in central Dublin came amid escalating Anglo-Irish tensions over the increasing number of asylum seekers arriving through Northern Ireland.

According to Ireland, more than 80 percent of asylum seekers cross the Irish border, which Dublin has fought hard to maintain invisibility and controls after Brexit. No data was provided as the figure was based on an expert assessment by officials.

The government insists that a deal with London from 2020 will allow it to send such people back to Britain and it expects London to honor the agreement.

However, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “not interested” in taking back asylum seekers from the EU via Ireland because France had refused to accept returns from the UK.

The sight of sidewalks around Ireland’s Office for International Protection lined with tents for several months has embarrassed the government in a country that has historically suffered from mass emigration but has been transformed by immigration. Today, one in five residents was born abroad.

The camp has been expanded in recent weeks and lines a main street and surrounding alleys. Ireland has been telling asylum seekers for months that it can only accept families. Single men – who numbered 1,839 on Tuesday – had to sleep restlessly. Most asylum seekers come from Nigeria.

Ireland’s net migration has more than tripled since 2021, reaching 77,600 in the year to April 2023 – the second highest since 1951 and the highest since 2007 – as governments across Europe wrestle with the policy of dealing with migrant flows from poorer countries.

Roads around the camp site were closed as excavators led by police, civil servants and workers in white overalls moved forward to clear empty tents.

Men who had left their tents collected their backpacks and put their belongings in garbage bags. In a three-hour operation, street cleaners swept up waste such as plastic bags, food packaging and paper. The government did not provide information about where the men were relocated.

Some of those crossing the Irish border were concerned about Sunak’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda under controversial new laws.

“I’m from Africa,” said Mohammed, who said he emigrated after a heated property dispute that left his brother in the hospital. “I want to go to Europe.”

Kevin Byrne, chairman of the South Georgian Core Residents’ Association, said the situation in the tent city had become “increasingly unbearable.” Hundreds of local residents have been affected and one business has seen a drop in trade so dramatically that it is at risk of going out of business if the tents are not removed, he said.

He applauded Harris for “taking control” and added: “You can’t just put a bunch of people on the street and walk away – that’s not the solution.”

“Good riddance,” said local resident Stan O’Brien, 66, adding that the tent city made people feel unsafe. “But they will come back.”

The government has cleared the area before, most recently just before St. Patrick’s Day in March, only to put up tents again.

Pir Sami Kupiszewski, 50, a Turkish political activist who has been in Ireland for three years, said he would not move and now expected to be arrested.

“A man texted me today in tears [after being removed from his tent]said Róisín McAleer, an activist with Social Rights Ireland, a group that distributes tents and provides other assistance. The man had been relocated before but had to go back because the facilities where he was taken were poor.

“He doesn’t want to be there. They are cut off from all social support,” she said.

Harris vowed Tuesday to “ensure that the laws of the land are applied” and said the return of tents “should not happen again.”