Protest continues at Ballinrobe hotel as asylum policy again resisted on streets
Minister says talks on plans to house 50 refugees are still going on
CONFUSION surrounded plans to house 50 international protection applicants (IPAs) in a former hotel in Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo, last night, after residents held an overnight protest against the proposal.
It is the latest example of local protest against housing of refugees – and will pile fresh pressure on a Government struggling to deal with an upsurge of objections and local violence in recent weeks.
The protest in Ballinrobe remained peaceful, amid a Garda presence. It was set to go through a second night last night until full assurances were received that the plan had been abandoned.
Local Ballinrobe representatives received official notice on Thursday that up to 50 males seeking international protection would be housed in the former JJ Gannon’s Hotel from tomorrow, prompting sharp rebukes from main party councillors.
‘Don’t have the resources – they’re already stretched’
When the plan was communicated publicly on Friday, a Facebook group opposing it was set up and within hours a crowd of several hundred protesters had gathered outside the site – which closed as a hotel in 2012 and had been the subject of local rumours after renovation work was carried out.
Yesterday morning, after a handful of people had maintained the protest overnight, Fine Gael councillor Michael Burke announced on Facebook that the lease for property had been ‘withdrawn for the current proposal as of this morning’.
Mr Burke wrote: ‘I am delighted with this announcement and it’s a good result for all the people that turned out last night and has [sic] been in contact with me over the past 24 hours.’
He later told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘We had a difficult situation for the last 24 hours and very little sleep. And I think the solution has been found to the situation and I’m happy with that. The people that were there last night are happy with that and I want to leave it at that.’
Mr Burke claimed the owner of the building – with whom he had spoken – had withdrawn the lease arrangement.
However, in a statement yesterday, a spokesman for the Department of Integration said: ‘The
department is continuing to engage with the provider in relation to the premises in Ballinrobe and is not in a position to comment further’.
Last night, RTÉ reported Mr Burke reiterating his claim, after he spoke directly with the owner again following the statement from the department.
The premises is owned by Ballinrobe native Tom O’Connor and had been leased to Sunnyhill Explorer and Banandel Limited, which was to operate it as an international protection centre.
In one Facebook video, two Asian men try to enter the premises and are grilled by protesters, some of whom mistake them for asylumseekers. The men explain that they work for the hotel’s owner but leave empty-handed after a 15-minute exchange.
In the video, one woman asks a man who says he will work as a security guard: ‘Why does this building need security if we’re not in any sort of danger?’
Mr Burke’s announcement yesterday that the lease had been withdrawn was met with scepticism from many Facebook users who posted demands to see proof and pointed out the statement said nothing about future proposals.
Mr Burke told the MoS he ‘wouldn’t ask the guy what he plans for the future’, saying, ‘That’s none of my business... He’s a private property owner and he’s entitled to do anything with the property going forward. But the present proposal as it stands is not proceeding – that’s my clear understanding from it. I’m satisfied. That’s what the people had an issue with.’
Mr Burke was not the only Government party councillor to refuse to toe the line dictated by the Department of Integration. Fianna Fáil Councillor Damien Ryan also attended the protest on Friday night and told Midwest Radio yesterday that local representatives had been ‘thrown in at the deep end’.
‘The scenario of 50 males going into a particular property has caused huge concern and alarm, and I’m here to stand with the public that elect me – stand here in solidarity with them, listen to what they’ve said. The views and the sentiments here this evening – I can only subscribe to [as well].’
Protest organiser and business owner Michelle Marie Smith, who lives locally, told Midwest that people were ‘petrified, because Ballinrobe is basically a commuter town now – businesses are closing left, right and centre. They’re struggling. With the new welfare rates reduced to €38 a week, our concern is, what are these 50 male non-nationals – probably undocumented people – what do they do here day in, day out, with a play school two doors down and the local community school?
‘This is on the main street where our main businesses are, and it’s really going to affect the businesses because these non-nationals will have nowhere to go.’
A Facebook group that had almost 1,500 members by yesterday evening was named ‘Ballinrobe Says No To 50 men planted in Gannon’s next to children’s day-care’.
One local man told Midwest Radio he had no problem with other nationalities but expressed conthe
cerns about 50 men with ‘idle hands’, saying: ‘It’s just not safe. My own wife likes to walk and run. She’s not going to feel safe coming up the town or running.
‘We have the lovely river road there. That was all done up last year. And it’s one of the nice resources we have. But from talking to a lot of young women here tonight, they’re not going to walk it,’ he said.
The man said people ‘want to help’ people from ‘war-torn countries’, but said Ballinrobe ‘already [has] a high number of refugees’ and 50 more ‘crammed into one building… just doesn’t fit’.
He said: ‘We don’t have the resources to help them – they’re already stretched for ourselves.’
Another resident, who referred Aisling Murphy’s killing and the stabbing of several children in Dublin in November – also expressed concerns about safety.
‘Children in a preschool two doors away... the post office where our elderly collect pensions, banks up the street and businesses trying to survive – and I mean survive because Ballinrobe has been absolutely annihilated in recent years.
‘Who’s going to feel safe? Who is going to allow their child out? What woman, or indeed man, is going to feel safe doing that walk any more?’
Councillor Ryan said: ‘It’s developer-driven, it’s opportunist-driven and there’s no strategy or inventory of the services that are in short supply.’ He said he has ‘sympathy’ for the men, who ‘could be the 50 finest individuals in the world’.