"We have been treated like animals", said one asylum-seeker waiting outside Dublin's Refugee Application Centre on Lower Mount Street. "How can they keep us here from 4 a.m. to tell us at 4 p.m. to go away?" he added.
The Garda formed a ring to protect the officials who came out to talk to the anxious crowd late in the afternoon.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you that we are not able to provide a service today", they were told in English and French by worried-looking officials.
Some asylum-seekers pressed forward to hear what was being said, and others to get attention. The word justice, pronounced in a French accent, could be heard clearly above the rustle of the weary crowd.
"We are working on it", the official said, "and we cannot say for certain it will be open tomorrow."
Others came forward waving their forms in the air. A garda repeated the message: "They cannot provide the service today - maybe tomorrow."
A crowd of about 100 men, women and children waited, huddled around the glass door of the Refugee Application Centre.
Many had been there for over 12 hours in the hope that they would get attention first. Others arrived to join the queue in the following hours and by 9 a.m. a large group had formed at the door of the centre. By the afternoon they were tired and the atmosphere was tense.
They came for money - some of them had not been paid for weeks. Others had just arrived in Ireland and wanted to apply for asylum. Yet others came for accommodation, some having been thrown out of where they had been staying.
One man queued in order to see the medical officer, whose note strictly instructed him to return yesterday, but he, too, was turned away and did not know what to do.
A group of three Romanians in their early 30s said they had slept in a nearby park. At 2 a.m. they had begun to queue outside the centre. They had arrived on Sunday and were seeking asylum. They had nowhere to go and intended to sleep in the same park last night. They said that they would return to the centre today.
Niyi, a Nigerian man in his 30s, said he had been in Ireland for five months. He had been queuing at the centre since seven yesterday morning.
He said that when he arrived here the officials were very sympathetic. "But unfortunately, after the first time here, the treatment has not been very good", he added.
A Palestinian man, who came here earlier this month, was unable to deliver his application form for asylum.
He said it took him five hours to find someone to speak to about his application form on the previous occasion, and now they would not open the door. He said: "I don't know why these people do this."
A group of Poles in their 20s said the centre could not find accommodation for them. They were told to find accommodation and the centre would pay for it.
The trouble was they could not find a place to rent. "People don't want asylum-seekers and how can you find accommodation without any money?" they asked.