THE OCCUPY WATERFORD protest encampment has been dismantled by city council workers, who moved in to take it down early this morning.

Gardaí were also in attendance as council employees removed tents and other structures at between 5.30am and 6am, a council official told TheJournal.ie. The move follows the dismantling of the Occupy Dame Street protest in Dublin yesterday.

Fergus Galvin, director of corporate affairs for Waterford City Council, said the camp was unoccupied and had been for some time.

We’d been keeping it under observation over the last number of days, and once we were satisfied that it was unoccupied we took the step of dismantling what was effectively an environmental hazard at that stage.

Galvin said members of the public had also informed the council that the protest had finished. “The information we had was that the protest movement had effectively disbanded,” he said.

No protesters were present as the dismantling took place and there were no incidents, he said. The camp was located by the clock tower on the city’s quays.

The last tweet from what appeared to be the Occupy Waterford Twitter account was sent yesterday and simply read “solidarity dame street”. The group last posted to its Facebook page on February 25.