A group of housing activists have protested after they and a homeless camp were removed from a site in Dublin 8 by gardai and Dublin City Council.
The incident happened at 7:30am on School Street in Dublin 8 on Tuesday morning, when housing activists from the Revolutionary Housing League claim that they were removed by gardai and officials from Dublin City Council. Speaking to Dublin Live, Laure Duez from the group said they been camping out at the site for a month-and-a-half, and that they initially camped out to raise awareness about a vacant building across the street.
She said: "We tried to bring awareness about the vacancy of the building to the public, and to also make it a shelter to anyone who needed shelter, particularly with the winter coming in. They evicted the camp a couple of weeks ago and then we came back, and now at around 7:30am on Tuesday the gardai and Dublin City Council evicted us again.
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"We came back with new stuff and the guards came back, and said we had no right to be on Dublin City Council property."
Laure said that on Monday night there was one person at the camp but usually there would be a "lot more." She explained: "There's so many people in need of shelter and tent bags, a lot of people have been staying in the tents and we put in the tents to try give them a safe place. We just want to have the right to protest here."
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Dublin City Council confirmed to Dublin Live that they removed the encampment. She said: "The City Council removed an unauthorised encampment from the public open space in Pimlico, Dublin 8, yesterday morning. We had been in constant communication with the protestors over the last months encouraging a voluntary move from the public property but to no avail."
Dublin Live has contacted An Garda Siochana for comment.
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