Heated debate at Ballina council meeting over housing of refugees

The head of the Ballina Municipal District criticised a local councillor for "spouting mad stuff" about the number of refugees living in Ballina.

Standing orders were suspended at the start of last week’s municipal district meeting to allow councillors to discuss the recent news that 120 international protection applicants were to be accommodated at the Twin Trees Hotel on the Downhill Road.

Cllr John O’Hara said Ballina had taken its fair share of asylum seekers thus far.

“There’s more of them than us on the street, we’re being outnumbered,” he said.

“Outnumbered by who?” interrupted Mayo Co Council's head of the municipal district, Declan Turnbull. “Can we deal with the facts? There are 407 asylum seekers including Ukrainians living in Ballina. Westport, which is a much smaller town, has 614. Castlebar has 1,393. We're way behind with 'them people' that you refer to. Can we deal with the actual facts rather than mad stuff people spout on Facebook?”

Cllr O’Hara said Westport has far more hotels than Ballina, adding that it isn’t fair that hotels in Ballina are now unavailable for tourists and local events such as weddings.

“It is not right that they’re in every hotel in Ballina except one. We’re the poor relation up here in north Mayo,” he said. “We need paperwork on everyone who comes in here, no one knows who's coming in and that’s unfair.”

Cllr Annie May Reape, who attended the first public assembly outside the Twin Trees on Friday, April 12, said what she saw at the protest was "frightening" but she understood where the people were coming from.

“It is hard to blame people for being frightened. This simply can’t happen. Mayo and Ballina have their fair share and I’m willing to go to Dublin to speak to the Taoiseach, the Tanáiste and Minister O’Gorman about this.”

“We don’t like the secrecy around this. We didn’t know about this and no one seems to be informed until the money goes through.”

Cllr Mark Duffy said there is a lot of anger in the community over the decision to accommodate asylum seekers in the Twin Trees Hotel.

“I was dealing with two homeless cases from Ballina last week and the only emergency accommodation available was in Ballinrobe.”

He said there is currently so much bureaucracy and red tape around the provision of housing yet it all "goes out the window" when it comes to finding accommodation for asylum seekers.

Cllr Michael Loftus said figures from a recent Tourism strategic policy committee (SPC) showed that 23% of tourist accommodation in Mayo is currently in use for asylum seekers or Ukrainian refugees.

“That’s way out of kilter compared to the rest of the country but no matter what we do or say, it won’t stop this happening,” he said.

Cllr Jarlath Munnelly said it was important to get the message out there that Mayo County Council has no role in accommodating refugees, it was a function of International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS). He criticised the way protestors outside the Twin Trees spoke to elected representatives during the recent protest, which was attended by Cllr Reape, Cllr Duffy, Cllr O’Hara and Minister Dara Calleary.

“No public representative should be spoken to like they were at that protest. Respect should be shown on each side.” 

He suggested that a letter be written to the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman.

“We run the risk of killing our tourism sector by allowing IPAS to use tourist accommodation and the Government recently signalled they would move away from this.

“We should write and ask them to engage with communities on this, I’m sure it would be more positive and we should tell them that we don’t support tourist accommodation being used in this way.”

However, Independent Cllr Seamus Weir said the council was still waiting for a reply from the Taoiseach to a previous letter about the situation in Gaza. He told his colleagues from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that it was up to them to act.

“It’s the same rhetoric that comes every time, write to the Taoiseach, write to the Taoiseach. The bottom line is that ye are in Government, ye are right beside Ministers, ye need to make a move.”

Cllr Reape told Cllr Weir that he was once a member of Fine Gael and had "done quite well out of it". He was also aligned with Fianna Fáil in Mayo County Council for the past five years under a deal that saw him become cathaoirleach in 2022. 

“You were in partnership with us in the council and you’ve done well out of it, you’ve achieved a lot of nice jobs out of it. You wouldn’t be where you are only for you were with us,” she said.

“You better retract that,” said Cllr Weir but Cllr Reape refused to retract her remark.

“We’re talking now for the good of Ballina and we should be united,” said Cllr O’Hara.

Cllr Munnelly said he is a Fine Gael councillor but that had not stopped him from blaming the Government for how it has handled the refugee issue.

Director of Housing with Mayo County Council Tom Gilligan said he was shocked at the protest outside the Twin Trees and described the behaviour of some in the crowd towards local councillors as that of "schoolyard bullies".

“The reality of this situation is that we received official notification around the same time as elected members,” he said.

He criticised Cllr Duffy for making a connection between the housing crisis and refugees.

“We had a housing crisis long before we had refugees coming to Mayo, it is wrong to bring that into the conversation.”

Mr Gilligan said he was also disappointed with Cllr O’Hara’s comments.

“I’m disappointed with the language you used councillor. Ballina is a great place and a very welcoming community.”

While councillors were speaking, protestors who had been camped outside the Twin Trees Hotel gathered outside the civic offices but they had dispersed by the time the three-hour meeting came to an end.