Contractors servicing sites earmarked for refugees 'targeted online to stop work'
A bus moves asylum seekers from outside the International Protection Office on Mount Street last Wednesday. Online posts which urge pressure to be applied to those contracted to do such tasks have risen sharply in recent weeks. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie
Contractors, bus companies, and taxi firms linked to sites earmarked for international protection applicants are being targeted on social media by anti-migrant groups in a bid to force them to withdraw their services.
Online posts by such groups, which urge pressure to be applied to both individual workers and companies, have risen sharply in recent weeks, but one travel company has been the victim of such posts for more than a year.
In one instance, a hire company's owner was identified, their home address posted to social media along with descriptions of their house by an anonymous account.
This mounting pressure has led to some taxi drivers to alter their behaviour, one source told the . Some drivers were reluctant to accept offers of jobs transporting refugees after the clearing of a "tent city" in Dublin last week, the source said.
It comes amid renewed focus on the methods being employed by anti-migrant protesters who on Thursday showed up at Taoiseach Simon Harris's house. While Mr Harris has said that new laws are not required to deal with such events, a bill from Fianna Fáil senators Malcolm Byrne and Fiona O'Loughlin, the Protection of Private Residences (Against Targeted Picketing) Bill, would make protesting at a private home illegal.
Last week a man in his 30s was arrested and released without charge after protestors attended the site of the Lawless Heron Hotel, which is currently not open for business, in Aughrim, Co Wicklow.
In a video posted to social media, a man tells the workers to “pack up and get the fuck out”, giving them an hour to do so.
DAC Construction, a family-run business, was tasked with carrying out work on the site for the hotel's owners, and said the work was not related to international protection but rather the building of a beer garden.
Gardaí said in a statement that "workers contracted to carry out lawful employment on the site were allegedly subjected to abuse by individuals present. Gardaí attended the scene and were also subjected to abuse."
On Friday, gardaí said the man had been released without charge but that the investigation is ongoing and a file will be prepared for the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Threats were also made by a small number of accounts against those in tents along the Grand Canal following the removal of an encampment outside munt Street last week.
A protest against the Government's asylum policy will be held in Dublin on Monday, with a counter-protest also due to be held. Garda sources said there will likely be a "heavy" presence in the capital during the bank holiday.
Around 70 tents have now been erected along the Grand Canal, just 200 metres from the International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) offices where a makeshift tent city was removed last Wednesday. A number of homeless migrants subsequently pitched tents in a private park in south Dublin on Thursday. However, those men left the area on Friday.
Tents have now been erected along the Grand Canal between Mount Street Bridge and Huband Bridge.
