Burning down the house
Only four communities have stopped a centre being opened.
According to the latest figures there are 220 sites around the country being used to accommodate IPAS asylum seekers. At the start of this year Ukrainians were being housed at over 136 locations in towns and villages all over Ireland. Locals in these communities have objected, protested, demanded answers from their political representatives, complained to the Department, registered their concerns over the impact on schools, housing and GP appointments. Despite all of this not one of these centres for refugees and asaylum seekers has been shut down.
On the other hand over the last few years there were four communities where residents objected, the asylum seekers were moved on and the site is now unoccupied. In each of these cases the building proposed for housing the asylum seekers was physically attacked and in three cases set on fire. In Rooskey the building was put to the torch twice.
Rooskey, Leitrim Roscommon
The Department of Justice has confirmed that a plan to provide an accommodation centre for asylum seekers at a disused hotel in Rooskey, Co Leitrim, will not now go ahead.
The department said it is committed to sourcing suitable accommodation for asylum seekers and a "regional procurement process" is under way.
When asked if the decision not to proceed had anything to do with arson attacks at the property, Mr Stanton said the incidents were 'unfortunate' but were not the reason for the announcement.
However, local Fianna Fáil TD Eugene Murphy said the situation over the use of the hotel to accommodate asylum seekers was "very badly handled" by the Government.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on equality, immigration and integration Fiona O'Loughlin said the decision sent the message to the perpetrators of the two arson attacks at the premises in recent months that they have gotten their way.
Finglas Bargaintown, Dublin.
Residents moved after gardaí responded to violent incidents targeting asylum-seeker accommodation
On late Tuesday evening last week, after the first group of asylum seekers had been moved in, a group of people forced their way into the premises, filmed asylum seekers and expressed anger at the use of the building, sources said. The group allegedly promised staff they would return.
On Thursday evening windows of the building were smashed in from the outside by a person armed with an iron bar.
Following discussions the following morning, it was decided to move the asylum seekers back to Citywest that day due to fears for their safety, including fears the centre would be subject to an arson attack.
Officials had been informed that organised criminals were suspected of being involved in the intimidation attempts in an attempt to curry favour with the local community.
Update:
According to people in Finglas the thing that was really the cause of the centre being shut is actually left out of the above report. Petrol bombs were thrown at the building on two separate occasions. Neither of these caused any major structural damage. But as a result the building became uninsurable as an asylum centre. No insurance company would quote a premium that would allow the centre to be run at a profit. And presumably the government was not willing to step in as a guarantor.
Ballincollig, Cork
Three men in balaclavas set fire to former school due to house Ukrainian refugees
Gardaí have launched an investigation after three men wearing balaclavas set fire to a former school which was due to house Ukrainian refugees.
The men entered the building on Thursday night after they had smashed the windows, and once inside they set it alight, then fled.
The building was unoccupied for several years but had recently been earmarked to house more than 90 Ukrainian refugees.
Security sources said that gardaí believe the fire was carried out by 'fringe groups' with 'political motives'.
Ballybrack Dublin
Gardaí believe that a fire at a building in Dublin where anti-asylum seeker protests had previously taken place was started deliberately.
It is understood Ridge House had previously suffered significant water damage as a result of an earlier disturbance, before it was damaged by fire last night.
The house had been the subject of anti-asylum seeker protests in July, after it was rumoured that it was being earmarked to house those seeking asylum.
Fine Gael councillor Frank McNamara said the house is privately owned.
He said that once the Government has enough information for an assessment, it will then begin the process to decide if the location is suitable for use by female international protection applicants.
Mr McNamara said it will take months before the Government can make any decision.
To the knowledge of this author, from the time these incidents occurred up to the present day no asylum seekers have been housed at any of these locations.
Since 2020 Roderic O'Gorman has been the Minister responsible for this issue. He inherited the situation in Rooskey - the others have happened on his watch. He has made two major decisions in relation to the issue, both serious, one compounding the other.
His first decision - to ignore the concerns of communities being expressed in all the ways that a citizen can seek to be heard - is something new in our politics. We are a small country with a highly retail form of politics - Fianna Fail were the dominant political organisation in the country for a long time because of how finely attuned they were to local feeling. The peace and stability we have enjoyed in the Republic, something that we have come to take for granted, owes a lot to communities being able to make themselves heard at government level.
And then, having made the extraordinary decision to ignore communities expressing themselves within the law, the Minister has decided to give a clear signal that he will grant the wishes of those who step outside it. Minister O'Gorman has shut and kept shut each centre that has been set on fire.
This second decision is in its own way no less worrying than the first.
A double threat.
For two years now communities have felt under threat that they might wake up any morning and find that the place they have known, grown up in, inherited from their parents and grandparents, has been changed fundamentally and utterly overnight. They worry about the loss of a community that is based on a shared history and a common experience of good times and bad, going further back through the generations than anyone can remember. Minister O'Gorman bears a large part of the responsibility for that fear. The numbers of asylum seekers that have come in in the last couple of years, the numbers of immigrants that have come in in the last decade, mean we also face the same threat as a country.
A society depends on people being able to communicate their displeasure with the decisions made by government. In a functioning healthy society the government is alert to and listening out for that displeasure. Elected officials know they'll have to pay for it come election time. In this country for the last couple of years we have seen a phenomenon that is unlike anything in our past, at least since we became independent. Public feeling is just being ignored by those in government. When the people try to communicate through the normal channels they're getting nowhere. When a community tries to voice its objections through the legal process, through its local representatives, through media, they're simply being ignored.
Unless they set fire to a building.
At which point the Minister recognizes their objections and acts on them.
We have a Minister signalling to the public that this is the only way to express opposition that he will entertain and take seriously.
The O'Gorman view
The damage to civic society, the damage to the relationship between government and the governed that is being done by sending out a signal like that shouldn't need to be explained to anyone. You would imagine that the Minister himself is aware of the danger - he just doesn't seem ready to address it. The easier option is to look the other way and hope for the best. Regardless of what the responsibilities of his office demand of him.
As far as Minister O’Gorman is concerned the system is working. When a community feels traumatized and threatened by the prospect of a sudden influx of foreign men that doubles the size of their town or village overnight and they express that feeling of existential crisis the Minister has the funds available to his department, together with the support of his peers, that allow him to silence and ignore those voices. As long as the community and the Minister are interacting on terms the Minister deals in and feels comfortable with - within the law, within the normal channels - there is 50 million available to be spent on community support and on setting up alternative community groups. Media, opposition and permanent government will all support the Minister. "Consultation" with the community need only amount to informing them about what has been done after the fact as well as offering to educate them as to why they were mistaken in the first place.
In the communities of Rooskey, Finglas, Ballincollig and Ballybrack local people stepped outside the framework in which the Minister operates. In each place, in one night of misrule, one or two locals went outside the law and derailed the plans to house asylum seekers in their midst. The Minister's response was to turn his attention away from that community and abandon his plans. There were after all other places where he could be reasonably sure the same thing wasn't going to happen. Places where normal service could be resumed on terms that suited the Department.
Why should he worry about the consequences for the rule of law of any of this. Things haven’t yet got to a point that forces the issue. To date there are only a handful of communities where this has arisen and, as of now, circumstances are not forcing him to deal with the consequences of his decisions nor is he coming under any pressure from others to do so.
The locals view
As for these towns and neighbourhoods themselves, like in some John B Keane play the community felt it was pushed to go over the line, the deed was done in the dark of night and won't be spoken about again.
Something primitive was briefly brought to the surface - what needed to be done was done - and then they put it behind them, out of sight and out of mind. Something as primitive and old and non negotiable as the need for self preservation. The town survived.
The public view
Leaving aside the media and opinion formers, the public, not all of them but a majority, seem to view what has happened in these places with something between toleration and outright sympathy. Ballincollig has not exactly become a bye word for either intolerance or outlaw behaviour. Most people reading this would need to be reminded that the events in Ballincollig even happened.
Guardians of the Peace.
The situation that the Minister has forced on us is not what these communities or any of us deserve or want. Despite what has been imposed on towns and neighbourhoods all over Ireland, despite the fact that all legitimate ways of trying to be heard have been ignored, we still hold on to our idea of how society should work and how we should properly try to make ourselves heard. In our communities we understand how important it is to preserve those things - how important it is to resist being dragged down to the level of power games on which Minister O'Gorman seems to operate, how important it is to do everything we can to operate within the law.
Our political culture is in need of restraint. We need elected officials to stop seeing how far things can be pushed. We need officials looking to understand and respond rather than pointing fingers and creating anxiety and destruction in ancient communities. Let's hope the Irish people will continue to show restraint where their government has not.