Steel fencing erected along the Grand Canal in Dublin to prevent homeless people, including homeless asylum seekers, erecting tents, has started to be removed.
Workers were dismantling the controversial structures from the length of the waterway at Portobello on Wednesday and by 4.30pm the stretch was free of all fencing.
Four workers were packing away the steel fencing pieces in piles and stacking the fence-bases. Asked whether the rest of the canal would be similarly cleared, they said it would in coming days.
The workers appeared to be private contractors. Both Waterways Ireland, which manages the canal network, and Dublin City Council have been contacted for comment.
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The apparent move to dismantle the fencing comes two weeks after Waterways Ireland started 24-hour patrols of the canal to stop homeless asylum seekers from erecting tents and to ensure fencing put in place to deter encampments was not torn down.
The all-Ireland body said then it hoped the measure, described as a “pilot programme”, would allow it to remove the fencing in place along the canal banks since May.
In a statement posted on its website, Waterways Ireland had said the patrols were in place to “deter erection of illegal encampments” and “to deter criminal damage to Waterways Ireland property and fencing”. It added: “All instances of illegal encampments and criminal damage to property have been and continue to be reported to An Garda Síochána.”
It was “seriously concerned for the safety and health of people staying in tents by the canal” and had “met with representatives of local residents groups to listen to their concerns and to discuss how we might fully reopen the amenity of the canal. In order to achieve this a number of options are being explored, including the acceleration of a landscaping and biodiversity programme of works”.
The fencing has been the subject of dozens of complaints to Waterways Ireland, including more than 90 between May and mid-August.
The Take Back Our Spaces Coalition, which protested against the fencing, described it as “exclusionary, racist and classist” and said it was being used to “weaponise the immigration issue” and to “divide working-class communities”.
As of Tuesday there were 2,746 male asylum seekers “awaiting an offer of accommodation”.
Their numbers have climbed since December 4th when the Department of Children’s International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) stopped providing accommodation to single, male adult asylum seekers on their presentation to apply for asylum.
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