Sir, – I ask that the Government, and Dublin City Council, locate and manage portable toilet and wash facilities outside the International Protection Office at Mount Street. We must provide basic facilities and human dignity for those displaced people seeking international protection here, while they are waiting substantive accommodation. Surely, this is easily doable. – Yours, etc,
NORMAN DELANTY,
Ratoath,
Co Meath.
Sir, – Kitty Holland’s article “‘People look at us like animals’: Up to 200 asylum seekers sleeping in makeshift Dublin camp” (News, March 6th) makes for distressing reading. This is all the more the case in light of another Irish Times article by Olivia Kelly dating from earlier this year revealing that more than 12,000 homes and commercial properties are vacant across Dublin, thus highlighting the elephant in the room (“Vacant buildings reimagined: How two Dublin office blocks may be turned into accommodation”, January 6th).
Naturally, this Government will likely resort to its usual litany of excuses including the tired cliché that juxtaposing vacant properties and individuals sleeping rough is too simplistic. Even so, the appalling state of affairs at present underscores not only a spectacular failure of policy but also a total lack of imagination when it comes to addressing the issue. – Yours, etc,
TARA HORAN,
Berlin.