Last summer various stretches of Dublin’s Grand Canal hosted clusters of tents pitched by recently-arrived male asylum seekers who the State was unable to house.
The tents had initially popped up a stone’s throw from the International Protection Office on Mount Street, where their international protection applications were being processed.
In response to the waterside encampments, Waterways Ireland, the all-island semi-State body with responsibility for internal waterways, erected a maze of tall metal fences.
These fences restricted the already narrow tarmac walkways and caged off much of the green space along one of Dublin city’s two major canals.
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Now, significant works to transform and widen the walkway between Leeson Street and Baggot Street bridges are weeks away from completion, Waterways Ireland has said.
The development has been in preparation since 2021, with ground first broken on the project last January, a Waterways Ireland spokesman said.
“This stretch of canal is a unique area in Dublin city, boasting one of the widest urban canal towpaths and a number of Dublin city’s finest tree specimens,” he said.
The stretch being upgraded is located within a Georgian conservation area and is “strongly associated with literary Dublin”, he said. It contains a “much-loved” statue of poet and novelist Patrick Kavanagh, which is “one of the most photographed locations in Dublin”, he said.
Waterways Ireland envisages the area will be a “high-quality urban space” that will “create space in the city for people to fully engage with the canal and its environs and positively contribute to making Dublin a climate resilient city”.
This week there was visible graffiti on the development’s roadwork signage along Leeson Street bridge. The graffiti labels the works “anti-homeless architecture”.
Waterways Ireland’s spokesman said the organisation’s “over-riding concern ... has been, and continues to be, public safety, public health and the health and safety of operational teams, including Waterways Ireland staff”.
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“The canal is a wonderful amenity for responsible recreational use – it is not a safe place to sleep,” he said.
The spokesman said the canal is “deceptively dangerous” with “deep water in places, up to 800mm of sediment on the bottom of the canal and steep slopes”.
“Waterways Ireland are obligated to uphold the highest standards of public health and safety. Anyone promoting the occupancy of tents by the canal needs to be very mindful of the serious risks they are encouraging people to take,” he said.
