Update is given on Ballina site offered as IPAS centre
The former secondary school site in Ballina has been mooted as an IPAS centre.
A planning enforcement inspection recently took place at a Ballina site that had been offered for use as an accommodation centre for international protection applicants (IPAS),
Ballina Municipal District councillors were told at their meeting last week that staff from the planning enforcement section of Mayo County Council visited the former St Mary’s Secondary School site at McDermott Street recently.
The council's Director of Services Catherine McConnell said it was her understanding that the owners of the site do not have a contract to provide accommodation for displaced persons seeking international protection. She hopes to have the planning enforcement report shortly.
The large property, which was purchased privately after the school relocated to a new campus in 2023, had been offered for use as an IPAS centre but the offer was rejected by the Department of Integration in early April. The county council previously granted a Section 5 exemption to CH Care Ltd, a Dublin-based company, declaring the site exempt from requiring planning permission for use as an IPAS centre.
Signage on an access gate has indicated that a nursing home would be developed on the vast site but no planning application of this nature appears to have been lodged with Mayo County Council.
