After being freed twice in the last month of tents housing applications for international protection, there are presently 80 to 100 homeless male asylum seekers living on the Grand Canal, reports RTE.
This group, however, is but a portion of the over 2,000 individuals who are currently waiting for offers of state-provided housing. Who else is there, then?
A team of volunteers who assist unaccommodated asylum seekers has been pondering this issue.
“You don’t have anyone taking an overall view of who is in a hostel, who is on a person’s couch, who is sleeping inside a church, who is on the streets and who is in a different city, and that’s what we’re trying to establish at the moment because we think it’s a massive protection risk not to understand where these people are and who is the most vulnerable,” volunteer Olivia Headon said, reports RTE.
A Somali applicant for International Protection, who has been living on the streets of Dublin since March and applied for international protection, told RTÉ News that he and his friend set up their tent “after midnight” most nights “around the Charlemount area and the Harcourt area,” but that they pack up and leave early in the morning.
“We hide ourselves in the city,” he explained, reports RTE.
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