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THE DEPUTY SECRETARY General of the Justice Department said that “nothing special” was being asked of Oughterard, Co Galway in accommodating asylum seekers earlier this year.
From mid-September, locals in Oughterard organised round-the-clock protests at the former Connemara Gateway Hotel which was due to accommodate 200 international protection applicants.
At the time, the Justice Department was accused of a lack of consultation.
Since September 2018, international protection applicants have been placed in hotels and B&Bs due to pressure on Ireland’s asylum system.
There are currently over 1,500 international protection applicants living in emergency accommodation, with 34 hotels and B&Bs in 12 counties now contracted by RIA to provide bed and board.
As the Oughterard protest grew, Justice Department officials consulted on how best to approach the ongoing situation.
On 16 September, two days after the protest started, Deputy Secretary General Oonagh Buckley wrote to officials saying it “might be useful to set in context” the number of Direct Provision centres already open in Ireland to set out the Department’s “whole of Ireland response,” emails released under Freedom of Information show.
Buckley suggested including maps of towns where emergency accommodation provision was located to set in context the situation and said that “nothing special” was being asked of the Galway village, which has a population of 1,300.
‘Potential to become problematic’
The Justice Department first became aware of the Oughterard protest on Saturday 14 September when 40-50 people demonstrated at the site. On that day, the head of RIA noted the protest had the potential “to become very problematic”.
Over the following week, protesters blocked entry to the hotel with a round-the-clock presence in place at the site. Gardaí could not intervene, Department officials were told, because the protest was held on a public road.
Gardaí also advised that Sean Lyons, whose company Fazyard Ltd was set to run the centre and which also runs Clondalkin Towers Direct Provision, take out an injunction against protesters.
On 16 September, Oonagh Buckley suggested officials meet “in crisis committee style” the following day.
Documents show that by 19 September:
Sean Lyons eventually withdrew the tender for the new DP centre in the interest of the safety of all stakeholders, he said on 1 October, forcing the Justice Department to contract additional hotels and B&Bs for asylum seekers as a result.
Fears over small-town infrastructure and a lack of services raised by Oughterard locals would later be echoed in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, Borrisokane, Co Tipperary and on Achill Island.
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In a a place like Oughterard, so many of residents have a sister, brother, daughter or son that have emigrated or forced to move to Dublin for work due to the recession in ireland caused by the government. This same government who has fu**ed over the irish people over and over and over again then suddenly have this empathetic compassionate plight to replace these irish people with asylum seekers in every small town. No wonder the irish people are protesting. People are sick of being FORCED to accept austerity measures like their own family relocating, loss in value of their homes, pay cuts, you name it. And then being FORCED yet again to accept asylum seekers in their villages and towns to replace this population. It’s a stab in the back yet again.
@Clarissa: just like communities in other places are ‘forced’ to accept people who emigrated from oughterard?
Do you not see the double standard in your post?
@John Mulligan: what an idiotic comment you just made.
@John Mulligan: I’m sure if any small village in Africa, east europe or Asia got landed with a bus load of irish asylum seekers, to stay in their local town which the locals were forced to pay for…then yes they would do more than just protest.
@John Mulligan: Emigration only refers to people coming from another country. Not another village.
@Clarissa: Oughterard has a population of about 1,318 people. The population of Dublin is about 1,000 times greater. Try putting 200,000 more people into Dublin and see if there is any reaction.
@Clarissa: By your definition the people that have emigrated from Oughterard are economic migrants, plain and simple and have not been subject to abuse, torture, war etc.
How would the people of Oughterard feel if their children that emigrated had to put up with the sort of abuse and attitudes such as your own that asylum seekers have to put up with in Ireland?
Another pointless article cobbled together from an FOI request just to fill space over Christmas.
A judge very rarely goes against such government decisions. It’s no wonder considering they are a law unto themselves and are vastly overpaid
“international protection applicants ! ? this wouldnt be leos media machine trying to ‘re- brand’ would it ? deflect attention by changing the name from ” asylum seekers ” like some corporate giant that has been caught fiddling the books or dumping stuff in rivers changing its name but still carrying on doing what it did in the past .
@Eric Davies: Its basically excess Muslim men
Gunnar Heinsohn predicted this migration of men years ago based on demographics of MENA, polygamy in Islam, and corruption in many of these countries
Excess men are exported out or sent to war
Learn about bitcoin and gold if you got time
@Mark O’Carroll: european countries (ie so called ‘christian’ countries ) have been sending ‘excessive’ men out to war as cannon fodder for hundreds of years too . as soon as the ‘lower orders’ start to get too organised or to stand up to the rich upper classes , as soon as any sort of rebellion or civil unrest is on the horizon -the establishment start a war -and then conscript or send entire generation of young men off to be killed for the ‘glory of their country’ ! its ethnic cleansing based on the class system and white european christian countries have done it for years . you are correct that a large number of those ‘seeking asylum’ are young men of ‘fighting age’ , if they were coming from european countries they would be the very people we would expect to stay behind and protect their homeland and families from any invading force rather than getting the first available form of transport out of there and leaving the women ,children and elderly to face the aggressors- clearly the way they think is different to the way we think !!
Do the homeless figures include these asylum seekers being house in emergency accomadation
@Darren Byrne: of course not. What you are reading includes not one single Irish person.
@PJ Higgins: Not true. The protestors are Irish.
We have something very seriously wrong with the Asylum process into this country.
For instance the Dublin convention is not implemented , if it was a high number of
il-als would not be in a position to enter into the Asylum process here. This an-maly needs to be addressed as the public in this country don’t believe the Dept,s lame excuses and figures any more. I have also noticed Print and TV media are quite quick when discussing anything about immigration into this country , are inclined to talk about the poor refugees coming from Syria , in order to justify the invasion from other peaceful countries. This country cannot sustain economic migrants continually, not only that we do not carry out investigations,s correctly in relation to economic migrants. When these people become citizens all the lame excuses come out ,like my boyfriend threatened me, running away from national duty service, witchdoctors put spells on my family etc. If this Open Borders policy is allowed to continue the slightest glitch in the economy, and we are on the downhill spiral out of control that will continue and we will never get out of for a long time.
A number of illegals into this country have deportation orders against them and they continue to receive welfare payments, why are they not deported. (illegals anywhere should be deported )
Stop telling us that all these people are very qualified which is not the case, most are very much dependent on social welfare and will be for a long time. We also have a lot of Asylum seekers complaining about University and college fees, let me put it this way we would all love to give up our jobs in the morning and go back to college, but then who would finance the running of the country. People in our country are not aware that a few countries and Ireland inclusive signed up to additional immigration Macron deals. This agreement allows Asylum seekers direct access into Ire. from the Taxi Sea Service Ships, in order for us to look well in Europe. Then we come along and try to curtail free speech in order to control dissenting voices and very quickly blame a right wing element in society. I would very much like to highlight that these People who love their country and can see the direction that it’s going in are the real Nationalist people (not Sinn Fein) and are not part of the looney left or right for that matter. The blame game from our Masters could see themselves liable from the Taught police
@Laz Mahon: Money is a special type of information
Learn about bitcoin and gold if you got time
Associated within the additional hate speech crime laws. Well this time electioneering ready, people are informed about the demise of our country. I fail to think this time around any so called cosy agreement between the parties in relation to the financial costs associated with Immigration will not deter discussions at the door steps. We have a growing unease and concern among many people in Ireland around the issue of immigration, and the lack of debate and discussion.
Immigration into the country needs to be managed at a sustainable level, despite what the Irish times would have you think, with their one sided view expressed daily
@Clarissa: they are doing it in South African,s bur- ing shops belonging to Nigerian,s . That country is up for sale shortly because if they are not in South Africa they are here. It’s amazing that a Nigerian priest visited Dublin lately and he was quite annoyed when he heard the number of people looking for refuge, as he stated in one of the newspaper,s, that he had a completely different opinion, and that his people were exploiting the goodness of the Irish people. Perhaps it is our own fault as when I was young we constantly collected for the Black babies, and now they arrive here just to collect the Box.
Bit early for popcorn but sure …
@Nomad: make sure to give some to the refugees in your local village it is Xmas after all
Please save the refugees and keep them away from that backward place filled with nothing but hatred of other human beings
@Jason: haha, says the man who hates every person in ougterard.
@Jason: I’m guessing you’ve never been to Oughterard, if you had, you’d realise how ridiculous and untrue your accusations are.
@Jason: your hatred for them is very intense what have they done on you?
@Jason: Oughterrard will continue to love foreigners as long as they are paying trout anglers
@Johannes Baader: white trout anglers
@nothing witty: so what your saying is had I been to Ough I would not be able to formalise an opinion critical of the way they are treating refugees. Just wanting to make sure that’s the ridiculous line of thinking you are going with before I too formalise an opinion on you
@Clarissa: no one ever said that I hate them, don’t u think the actions of those in Ough show enough hatred towards humanity without there being a requirement for more from.me, I’m merely highlighting their excellence in this area, I.e. UNcompassion for others
@John Mulligan: John u never said a truer word, I’ll back u all day
@Jason: In a word, yes. To pass judgment on an entire population based on your tabloid view of the world is just as lazy as those who judge all asylum seekers the same way. But you’ve never been to ‘Ough’ (by the way, NOBODY calls it ‘Ough’), so what would you know. Don’t waste your time trying to ‘formalise an opinion’ on me, you’ll only hurt your brain.
@Jason: Donate all of your property and posessions to refugees. If you don’t you’re UNcompassionate. If you had any proper knowledge of the situation you would know these people are protesting the profiteering off refugees by hotel and b&b owners. Or did you not read all the reports connecting these hotel onwers, who have made millions, directly to TD’s in the dail? Cousins, mates and what not.
We have something very seriously wrong with the Asylum process into this country.
For instance the Dublin convention is not implemented , if it was a high number of
il-als would not be in a position to enter into the Asylum process here. This an-maly needs to be addressed as the public in this country don’t believe the Dept,s lame excuses and figures any more. I have also noticed Print and TV media are quite quick when discussing anything about immigration into this country , are inclined to talk about the poor refugees coming from Syria , in order to justify the invasion from other peaceful countries. This country cannot sustain economic migrants continually, not only that we do not carry out investigations,s correctly in relation to economic migrants. When these people become citizens all the lame excuses come out ,like my boyfriend threatened me, running away from national duty service, witchdoctors put spells on my family etc. If this Open Borders policy is allowed to continue the slightest glitch in the economy, and we are on the downhill spiral out of control that will continue and we will never get out of for a long time.
A number of illegals into this country have deportation orders against them and they continue to receive welfare payments, why are they not deported. (illegals anywhere should be deported )
Stop telling us that all these people are very qualified which is not the case, most are very much dependent on social welfare and will be for a long time. We also have a lot of Asylum seekers complaining about University and college fees, let me put it this way we would all love to give up our jobs in the morning and go back to college, but then who would finance the running of the country. People in our country are not aware that a few countries and Ireland inclusive signed up to additional immigration Macron deals. This agreement allows Asylum seekers direct access into Ire. from the Taxi Sea Service Ships, in order for us to look well in Europe. Then we come along and try to curtail free speech in order to control dissenting voices and very quickly blame a right wing element in society. I would very much like to highlight that these People who love their country and can see the direction that it’s going in are the real Nationalist people (not Sinn Fein) and are not part of the looney left or right for that matter. The blame game from our Masters could see themselves liable from the Taught police
“Ireland of the Welcomes”, my ar$e!
Cont.
The blame game from our Masters could see themselves liable from the Taught police
Cont.
The blame game from our Masters could see themselves liable from the Taught police
@Anna69wx: Ah will ya f off this site onto ur own kinda place
“Irish judge stunned that there are no full time Gardai in rural Ireland”.
Irish judge stunned that there are no Gardai in rural Ireland. Opts instead for punishment beatings.
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