Three men were arrested at a rally outside the GPO in Dublin city centre on Wednesday afternoon.
Organisers of the gathering were protesting what they described as the Government’s attitude to immigration and homelessness.
The three men, who were aged between their late teens and late 50s, were taken to a Garda station in Dublin. They were subsequently charged and will appear before the courts at a later date. An Garda Síochána said investigations into the incident, which took place at 1.30pm, are ongoing.
The group of approximately 50 people moved from the GPO to Kildare Street, near Leinster House, where they set up camps behind barricades.
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One of the protesters, John, a 63-year-old man who lives in Co Donegal, said he organised the rally as a “non-political grassroots movement” to protest against the Government’s attitude to homelessness and immigration.
He said the group was formed because of the record levels of homelessness recorded in the State this year.
John said he is not opposed to immigrants per se; “We’re not saying they are the problem, we’re saying the Government is the problem. There’s immigrants coming in here and on a humanitarian level alone it’s wrong because they’re put into tents along the canals. They don’t want that, we certainly don’t want to see them suffering. But we don’t want to see the Irish suffering.
“House the Irish. House the immigrants, but house the Irish first,” he said.
Several participants who did not want to be identified said they were also homeless, or had experienced homelessness in the past. One young man said his time being homeless was “not a nice experience, to know that my Government doesn’t really give a toss about us”.
The participants connected online on social media, YouTube and through word of mouth.
As rebel ballads played over a speaker amid a sea of Tricolour flags, a young man with a megaphone said: “The youth have no future, the youth will never be able to live in this country and we will emigrate off.”
The group is planning to continue the rally overnight and into Thursday morning to highlight the homelessness crisis for “Irish people”.
Several tents with cookout stoves were erected in the afternoon.
