THIS MORNING, WE all watched scores of refugees being taken out of Mount Street in Dublin’s city centre.
An encampment has developed there over the last few weeks outside the International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas) office.
A large-scale operation began with organisations and An Garda Síochána descending on
the area to begin relocating the people living there in tents. How did we get here?
The government announced in December that Ireland had run out of accommodation.
Since then, people who are coming here seeking asylum have been given tents. In this situation, where would you go? Naturally, you would stay as close as possible to where you need to be which has led to a lot of people setting up on Mount Street.
This has not come without its issues. Irish people have decried the “eye-sore” in the centre of town and the far right have been given fuel to spread their vitriol. They use this situation to push their own agenda onto people who may be concerned about the situation that is developing.
We had the incident with Crooksling around St. Patrick’s Day. A day which will forever be marred with shame when we are supposed to be celebrating our Irish pride.
Now the encampment is being moved again. A day before the move was announced, I was on the street giving out food. I met a man who asked me to call him Steve. I’ll call him by this name for the purpose of this article but I refer to his real name when talking to him. Steve was very grateful when we gave him food and asked if he could take an additional sandwich for his friend. He then asked if he could volunteer in any way.
It struck me that even though he had very little, he was ready to help others. In Ireland, we can be quick to judge. A lot of people who show disdain for refugees have never spoken to one. Their only interactions with refugees are through the media or far-right agitators. We need to bridge this gap.
On the day the encamped was being relocated, Steve messaged me saying he was being moved and he did not know where.
This is one of the few ways in which we are failing refugees.
Imagine if one day you woke up to a large presence of police on your road. They were there to move you and your neighbours and you didn’t know where you were going. On top of that, you may not know the language that the police are speaking.
Would you be happy to go along?
What would you feel?
Fear, anxiety?
This is a failure of communication which should be a top priority of any government.
This goes for both the refugees and the communities in which these people are being brought to.
We forget ourselves.
In Ireland, we were once immigrants who had to travel to avoid death, famine and oppression. We were not always treated well where we landed. Now our media talks about these human beings like they are a swarm of bees and a nuisance.
For us to treat refugees like this. For our media and government to talk about them in this manner is us failing asylum seekers, forgetting our history and forgoing the values of what it means to be Irish.
A solution is never straightforward in these situations but we need to start somewhere.
I think it would have been unfair to say that we could have anticipated this level of people seeking asylum a couple of years ago. We were not prepared for the geo-political incidents that were kicking off and this started Ireland on the backfoot.
But these have been ongoing for a couple of years so this should no longer be the case. We need to catch up and have more purpose-built asylum seeker accommodation while people await a decision on their application.
This accommodation needs to ensure the person is treated with dignity and respect. We seem to be vastly under-resourced in dealing with this refugee crisis, this must also be addressed.
We must recognise our position in the world and step up to the plate. Most Irish people would be very welcoming of refugees if there was enough housing to ensure they do not feel like they need to compete with refugees and that their area has the resources to comfortably work with everyone.
Ireland is not full but it is vastly underdeveloped and under-resourced.
We need to explore new solutions to crises we face as a nation. We can do this while also returning to the Irish values of openness, empathy and brotherhood. We have a big battle ahead of us for the soul of our nation and I believe we can win.
Leon Diop is an author and founder of Black and Irish. He is a mixed race man from Tallaght. He is a host of the Black and Irish podcast with RTÉ. He currently serves on the board of the Childhood Development Initiative, Tallaght and Work Equal.
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