Public health inspectors visiting the Mount Street encampment of asylum seekers in Dublin in late April heard that rats had been running around in daylight, saw street drains blocked with soiled toilet paper and warned of a substantial risk of infectious diseases being spread.
The HSE health protection team said that asylum applicants living there had no choice but to use the streets as toilets during the night while seagulls and other birds were seen rummaging through food waste at the site. The HSE staff could not even tell how many people were living there, at first believing there were 200 but later discovering there were 273 when the encampment was dismantled.
When the inspection took place, the public health staff saw “open defecation, faeces, including diarrhoea ... and urination”. Drains were found to be blocked with soiled toilet paper and garbage was evident all around the encampment.
The public health report, which was released under Freedom of Information laws, said: “[Department of Justice] staff had witnessed rodents at the site, even during the day. Rodents (and birds), as vectors of disease, further add to risk.”
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Northern Ireland is in its terminal phase. This place never made any ethical or economic sense
It said trying to clean the site with power hoses was challenging because of the tightly packed tents and the risk of spreading contamination further.
Concerns were also raised that there could be drug waste on the site – including dirty needles – that had the potential to spread “blood-borne viruses”. The report said even the most basic public health standards, which included access to fresh water, sanitation services and proper waste collection were not in place.
“The physical, psychosocial and emotional pressures caused by a lack of security and poor shelter compound the stresses experienced by these people, significantly undermining their health and wellbeing, and ability to recover,” it said.
It said the encampment represented a public health risk not just to those living in the tents, but also to people living and working in the vicinity. The report said tents were generally small with “larger heavy-duty tarpaulins” providing extra cover above them.
It said the conditions meant people were left without “privacy and human dignity” and that there was no special security in place, although garda patrols had become more frequent.
It said the international protection applicants should be given alcohol hand sanitiser and that drainage and unblocking services needed to take place much more often.
“The risk of fire, due to tents in proximity to each other, should be considered by local authorities,” it also noted.
The tent village was removed in May.
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