‘We sleep with our eyes open’: Homeless asylum seekers in Dublin fear attack and the encroaching cold

As temperatures fall to four degrees on Thursday night, about 25 homeless asylum seekers, bedding down in flimsy tents in a sheltered area in south Dublin city, worry about colder, darker nights ahead.
“I am good, yes, but it is very freezing,” says one man in his 20s, from Jordan, beginning his fourth night in Ireland. “I just have one jacket and one sleeping bag. I think I will maybe need more.”
Mohammed (26), from the Palestinian West Bank, has been here a month. “Still we are on the street. It is more cold tonight, no heat. Of course, yes, we are worried the more cold weather is coming. A human cannot bear too much cold – it is bad for the bones and joints.”
Ahmed (47) from Jordan agrees it is cold but is more worried about being attacked in the tent.
Another Jordanian says he and a friend take turns sleeping, with one or other keeping watch through the night. “Outside you don’t know if attacks is coming. Yesterday someone came in a taxi to another place and wanted to fight us, hitting the tents with like a knife, cutting all this,” he says, gesturing to the tents. “We sleep with our eyes open.”
Those working with homeless asylum seekers are calling for a “cold weather strategy”, similar to that provided annually by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) for rough sleepers, to be put in place for homeless asylum seekers. Failing that, they say the DRHE’s cold weather plan should be extended to cover those asylum seekers. They are not entitled to access any emergency accommodation provided by the DRHE.
“This cohort, because they cannot access the homelessness hostels, are particularly vulnerable,” says Aubrey McCarthy, chairman of the Tiglin homelessness charity, who was at the camp doing outreach work. “Any cold weather initiative, regardless of ethnicity, has to take into account anybody who is sleeping on the streets. Otherwise, you are dealing with potential deaths.”
Stressing Tiglin had worked for “many years” with all homeless people, he said: “Tonight is the first [time] in months, shaking people’s hands on the streets, each hand is freezing. And we are only in September. We have put out a call for hats and gloves. We have been short of men’s clothes. [A bank] did a collection for us this week and we have more warm clothes, but gloves, hats, they’re essential.”
[ ‘You feel you’re doing the State’s work’: volunteers step in to help asylum seekersOpens in new window ]
Nick Henderson, chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, called for “immediate steps [to] be taken to ensure that international protection applicants’ basic needs are met … as winter looms.
“We are deeply concerned by the number of international protection applicants without accommodation,” he says. Figures published on Friday show the number of male, adult asylum seekers has climbed to 2,612 – up 24 since Tuesday.
Henderson says: “The High Court stated in July that the support given to unaccommodated [applicants] is inadequate and that an inability to access basic needs, particularly accommodation and hygiene, leaves people in a ‘deeply vulnerable and frightening position that undermines their human dignity’ and breaches EU law’.
“The court expressed an expectation that the State would respond appropriately. It is now six weeks since the court’s decision and there has, as far as we know, been no formal Government response or change in policy.”
Volunteers, who have been working with this cohort since March, when large-scale encampments emerged following a previous decision that single, adult, male international protection applicants would not be offered accommodation on presentation at the International Protection Office, say the camps “cannot continue into the winter”.
One volunteer, who does not want to be named, says she has “really serious concerns with the weather” and “serious concerns for the safety of the men [as nights are dark for longer] and for volunteers setting up camps daily, as camps keep getting cleared”.
Another, also helping homeless men since March, says she is “worn out … I am worried about the winter, the cold, the moving about constantly, the attacks.”
They say “warm men’s jackets, blankets, duvets, hats and gloves, and hot water bottles are urgently needed”.
Since December 4th, 5,334 single males have presented to International Protection Accommodation Services seeking accommodation. Of these 2,175 have been subsequently offered accommodation and 547 accommodated following a vulnerability triage.
A spokesman for the Department of Integration said staff were working “very closely with four homeless charities in Dublin to provide hot meals, showers and a place to rest. Some of these agencies have extended their opening hours in order to provide greater assistance to people who have so far not been offered accommodation.
“The Department continues to work hard to find, develop and open suitable accommodation sites, so that we can offer appropriate and safe accommodation to all people applying for international protection.
“Accommodation centres, like the one at Thornton Hall and others, are being developed and brought into use, to address the shortages.”
A spokeswoman for the DRHE said the cold weather strategy would be published in October.