Further to a homeless man suffering life-changing injuries while his tent was being removed from along the Grand Canal near Leeson Street Bridge in Dublin yesterday at around lunchtime….

Dublin City Council and Waterways Ireland have released statements.

At 11.16am today, Dublin City Council released a statement saying:

An incident occurred yesterday, 14th January, 2020, involving a homeless man on the Grand Canal during a process where Waterways Ireland were removing tents that were placed in a precarious and dangerous location.

An individual was injured during the process and was taken to hospital. The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive is currently liaising with the hospital and every support is being provided.

Our thoughts are with the man at this time.

The Executive has been engaging with the individual for some time and accommodation remains available to him.

Every action that is taken by state services is taken in the interest of health and safety of those individuals experiencing homelessness.

The matter is currently being investigated by the Gardai and there will be no further comment.

Just before 12 noon, on Today With Seán O’Rourke, Mr O’Rourke read out a statement that RTÉ received from Waterways Ireland.

Reading the statement, Mr O’Rourke said:

“Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, the DRHE, work collaboratively with Waterways Ireland to remove tents along the canals in Dublin where they’ve become a public safety hazard.

“The process is initiated by DRHE with the homeless person and it’s only when that negotiation is complete and arrangements made that Waterways Ireland is contacted to remove the temporary accommodation on the canal bank.

“Under our by-laws, Waterways Ireland is required to maintain safe the canals and waterways.

“On the 14th of January, yesterday, an incident occurred at Leeson Street on the Grand Canal.

“A Garda investigation has been launched and Waterways Ireland is co-operating fully.

“While that investigation is ongoing, Waterways Ireland is obliged not to comment further.”

When Broadsheet contacted Waterways Ireland for this statement, it sent out a different statement.

The statement sent to us states:

“Waterways Ireland and Dublin City Council/Dublin Regional Homeless Executive work in co-operation to remove tents along the canals in Dublin where they have become a public safety hazard.

On the 14th January an incident occurred at Leeson Street, on the Grand Canal. Our thoughts are very much with the individual who was injured.

A Garda investigation has been launched and Waterways Ireland is co-operating fully.

While that investigation is ongoing Waterways Ireland is obliged to not comment further.”

EARLIER:

Yesterday around lunchtime.

A homeless man was sleeping in a tent near Leeson Street Bridge along the Grand Canal in Dublin when he suffered “life-changing injuries”.

Dublin City Council and Waterways Ireland were clearing tents from the area when the incident happened.

A Garda spokesman has said the man is currently in St Vincent’s Hospital where he remains in “serious condition but stable”.

This morning, RTÉ’s Dublin Correspondent John Kilraine spoke to Audrey Carville about what happened.

From their discussion:

Audrey Carville: “John this was a man who doesn’t have a permanent home. He was living in a tent. Can you just take us through what happened?”

John Kilraine: “Well it seems that Dublin City Council in conjunction with Waterways Ireland were taking part in what they call a clearing operation. This is an ongoing thing that they are trying to stop these tent encampments of homeless people that have been springing up around the city.

“Obviously they were unaware that one of the tents, there was a homeless person still in there. This happened around lunchtime yesterday, near Leeson Street Bridge.

“An industrial vehicle was being used to clear the tents. When it became known that there was someone there, he was taken to hospital, to St Vincent’s Hospital. It’s understood he’s undergone surgery, is in a serious condition and has suffered life-changing injuries.”

Carville: “And has the council or Waterways Ireland said anything about this?”

Kilraine: “We’ve put in a query to a number of agencies including Dublin City Council. We do know that the issues of these tent encampments has been an ongoing issue for a number of years. The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive are not in favour of giving tents to homeless people.

“They will give out sleeping bags. All the charities that work with them will give out sleeping bags and not tents which they say pose particular problems.

“We’ve had encampments of up to 15 tents up in Drumcondra, on the Royal Canal and there’s a lot of complaints then from residents about what subsequently happens then.

“You have a lot of problems with anti-social behaviour and other people getting attracted into the area. That’s an issue that has been going on for a number of years there.

“It also tends to present particular difficulties for the homeless agencies trying to get in contact with homeless people in that they can’t, they don’t know if they’re awake, or they can’t disturb them while they’re in the tents.”

Carville: “Yes I remember, I think it was last year, one of our reporters on Morning Ireland spoke to some of the men who live in tents and I think they said they do it because they feel safer and they prefer their own company to, perhaps, the crowded conditions of hostels?”

Kilraine: “Well that’s the ongoing thing, an ongoing problem is that people do not want to sleep, particularly in one-night only hostels, basically because of robberty, drug-taking and aggression.

“A lot of these hostels are low-threshold hostels where they’re just trying to provide a roof for the night for people who might be taking drugs or who might be intoxicated. So. But this will cause problems and that’s basically what the issues are. Robbery is the big problem followed by drug-taking and aggression that they get in these hostels.

“There are moves now to make what they call Standard Temporary Accommodation – STAs – where people get six months. They get their own bed, that they can come and go…”

Carville: “Ok.”

Kilraine: “And they’re trying to get more and more of those facilities rolled out.”

Carville: “Ok. Well our thoughts with this poor man this morning. Thank you very much indeed, John Kilraine, our Dublin Correspondent.”

Dublin City Council have since released a statement, saying:

“An incident occurred yesterday, 14th January, 2020, involving a homeless man on the Grand Canal during a process where Waterways Ireland were removing tents that were placed in a precarious and dangerous location.

An individual was injured during the process and was taken to hospital. The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive is currently liaising with the hospital and every support is being provided.

Our thoughts are with the man at this time.

The Executive has been engaging with the individual for some time and accommodation remains available to him.

Every action that is taken by state services is taken in the interest of health and safety of those individuals experiencing homelessness.

The matter is currently being investigated by the Gardai and there will be no further comment.”

Waterways Ireland have released the following statement:

“Waterways Ireland and Dublin City Council/Dublin Regional Homeless Executive work in co-operation to remove tents along the canals in Dublin where they have become a public safety hazard.

“On the 14th January an incident occurred at Leeson Street, on the Grand Canal. Our thoughts are very much with the individual who was injured.

A Garda investigation has been launched and Waterways Ireland is co-operating fully. While that investigation is ongoing Waterways Ireland is obliged to not comment further.”

Meanwhile…

Last night, homeless charity Feed Our Homeless claimed that a homeless man had been found dead near the Leeson Street Bridge area along the Royal [sic] Canal.

The charity spoke of the man’s “mannerly” and “respectful” attitude shown towards the charity’s outreach team.

One media outlet reported that it had been confirmed the man’s remains were taken to the city morgue.

However media reports about this alleged death have since been deleted.

A Garda spokesman told Broadsheet:

“We received no reports of a death. There seems to have been some confusion in the media that seemed to suggest two separate incidents.”

Listen back to the Morning Ireland item in full here

EARLIER:

Last night.

Leeson Street Bridge, Dublin.

A man, reportedly in his 40s, was found dead next to a bench he had been sleeping on for at least two months.

Homeless charity Feed Our Homeless writes:

The management here at FOH [Feed Our Homeless] would like to send our condolances to the family and friends of the homeless man who lost his life to the streets on the Royal Canal earlier today.

This man was very manerly also very respectful towards all the FOH outreach team when we would engage with him each night offering him emergency supplies to get through the night.

Founder Chief Executive of the Feed Our Homeless charity Tony Walsh comments: “This is very sad to hear of another life lost to the streets this evening.

“There are far too many homeless sleeping rough on our streets at night in bitter cold conditions. A lot more must be done to help reduce the numbers of people who are experiencing homelessness and who are sleeping rough on our streets in unacceptable conditions.

“I’m calling on Dublin City Council also the relevant authorities to carry out a full overhaul of all state funded emergency hostels around the city and to ensure hostels are made safer at night to encourage people who are experiencing homelessness also who sleeping rough on the streets take up the emergency beds, as the streets are simply not a safe place to be sleeping.”

Feed Our Homeless (Facebook)

Homeless man found dead beside bench in Dublin he had slept on for over two months (The Irish Mirror)