Lowry gets €3.5m deal after broadside in Dáil
INDEPENDENT TD Michael Lowry has secured €3.5m for Roscrea – the scene of protests over plans to house 160 asylum seekers at the town’s only hotel – after he attacked the Government’s immigration policy in the Dáil.
In highly critical comments, the former Fine Gael minister – who is usually supportive of the Coalition – said the Government ‘failed Roscrea in its time of greatest need’.
Addressing the Dáil on Wednesday, the Tipperary TD said: ‘This is a Government on the run on immigration policy, which is making it up as it goes along, and whose actions are shrouded in secrecy until the last minute.’
He also said it is ‘comical politics to close one hotel and open another’, in response to plans to open a ‘community model hotel’ in Roscrea town centre. Grants Hotel – otherwise known as the Damer Court – has been closed for more than 10 years. Earlier this week, Integration
Minister Roderic O’Gorman confirmed all Government parties were open to exploring funding mechanisms to open a community hotel on the site.
However, following his critical comments, Mr Lowry this weekend said he is ‘delighted to confirm’ a €3.5m investment in a digital education and enterprise hub for the town in his constituency.
He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘This is a hugely significant and important project for the town of Roscrea. It has been a long, tedious process. Several obstacles were overcome and there now remains just a few formalities to be completed.’
Government backbenchers were less than impressed. One Coalition TD said: ‘We are being gazumped by our own Government. We are the mudguard for Roderic and his liberal friends, and then when the furore starts and we are supposed to stand by the Government, it is the Independents who negotiate the deals.
‘Rural Independents and future rural Independents are over us like a flock of vultures,’ the TD said.
Meanwhile, the Roscrea protests have also exacerbated concerns within the Coalition that the policy of dispersing refugees around the country will sow the seeds for a nationwide antiimmigration platform similar to the Marine Le
Pen movement in France.
A Government source told the MoS: ‘In France, Le Pen only became a national movement when immigrants were dispersed across France after riots in Paris. The authorities tried to solve the problem by spreading refugees across the country, but they only spread the problem. Le Pen became a national movement. We are flirting with that scenario.’
They added: ‘We are breeding little Le Pens everywhere. Rural disaffection is huge, and immigration is the issue that they can all gather around, from Wexford to Mayo to Donegal.’