Tánaiste pledges to deal with 'dangerous' and 'unacceptable' Grand Canal tents

Tents which have been pitched by asylum seekers along a stretch of the Grand Canal, Dublin, near the International Protection Office on Mount St. Picture: Niall Carson/PA

Tents erected by migrants along the Grand Canal in Dublin are "dangerous" and "unacceptable", the Tánaiste has said, as he promised to address a serious accommodation crisis for asylum seekers.

Just a week after a multi-agency operation moved migrants from Mount Street, the Government is coming under renewed pressure to source accommodation for around 100 people now sleeping in tents along the canal.

Both Micheál Martin and Taoiseach Simon Harris have promised to take action over what was described as a "tent city" by members of the opposition.

In the Dáil, Labour leader Ivana Bacik claimed that a notice advising migrants that they will receive an extra allowance if they leave IPAS tented accommodation had been put up in the International Protection Office on Mount Street.

"What we've seen is going up in the IPO office today on Mount Street is a notice advising those who are now in tented accommodation that they can have an increased daily expense allowance if they leave that tented accommodation," she told the Dáil.

"This is clearly a desperate stopgap attempt to try and and move people on without any sort of reality in the provision."

However, speaking to the Irish Examiner outside the office, one worker said she had "no idea" about the alleged notice.

She said that no fresh notice had been put up in the last 24 hours, adding there had been "nothing new".

The Department of Integration did not respond to requests for clarification on the matter.

Meanwhile, Independent TD Michael McNamara told the Dáil migrants in the UK are being transported to Ireland under false promises of work by "people traffickers".

Mr McNamara raised the case of a man from the Indian subcontinent who entered the UK on a visa approved by the Government there which allowed him to work for 10 hours per week.

He told the Dáil that an agency in London, which promised work in Ireland "took £1,500 from him and retained his passport so that he would pay an additional £1,000 when he started work.

"They arranged his travelling to Liverpool and from there a ferry to Belfast from where he travelled down to Dublin."

Mr McNamara said the man was given the Eircode and postal address of his new employer, but added: "When he turned up there, it was the International Protection Office (IPO) in Dublin.

"He obviously didn't know he was being sent to the IPO."

Mr McNamara told Simon Harris in the Dáil that the man was one of five people travelling in a similar way, organised by the same agents.

"He knows of 30 more people sent to Ireland by the agency in the same way."

Mr McNamara said the man is now attempting to get out of the asylum system in Ireland and return to the UK but he does not have his passport.

"It's very clear that vulnerable people in a precarious position are being horribly exploited by bad actors.

"But it's equally clear that our State is being exploited by those bad actors," he said.