Better communication on refugees demanded
Communities should be consulted, and services assessed before asylum seekers or refugees are housed in them, members of Westmeath County Council have demanded.
At the May meeting, Cllr Denis Leonard said there were to be 180 Ukrainians accommodated in Kinnegad, but now, every time Ukrainians move out, “IPA people” are moved in and “no one knows who is in the town”.
“They won’t communicate with us at all,” he complained.
Cllr Leonard said: “Coole was an accident waiting to happen”. He went on to say, “you get €800 a month if you take in people”, but “these developers are getting €130 per night, per head”.
People are often moved into what he called shanty towns, thrown-up accommodation, short term, and they are often imposed on a small community like Coole or Castletown Geoghegan, doubling or tripling the number of people in it, he remarked.
The council have met with the Community Engagement Team (CET), the group who meet communities after a large group of asylum seekers or refugees are appointed.
Cllr Leonard said there needs to be communication and assessment of local facilities before people are moved into communities.
He called for a policy to allow for consultation, protection, enforcement, and transparency, in a way that will give people confidence in the system, and will also protect communities and this council.
Cllr Paul Hogan agreed that there needs to be consultation in terms of what services are in the area – a GP service, a post office, transport links, employment opportunities – before a decision is made to move people in. “The department must initiate a consultation strategy before decisions are made,” he said.
Barry Kehoe, chief executive, said the meeting with CET was useful, but accepted that thy are tasked with communicating with communities after allocations have been made. “All we can do is seek to have a policy in place that there would be engagement with communities in advance of people being assigned to communities. We can ask the department again if they would consider putting such a policy in place,” he said.
St Peter’s, Castlepollard
Endeavours to repurpose St Peter’s, Castlepollard, will be supported by Westmeath County Council, Cllr Denis Leonard was assured at the May meeting of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad.
He had asked that the council liaise actively with the Departments of Health and of Further and Higher Education, and with the Longford Westmeath Education and Training Board, to ensure the progress of the promised feasibility study to see if St Peter’s could become an education and training centre, community space and local sporting fields for Castlepollard and the wider north Westmeath area. Director of services, Deirdre Reilly, explained that the council could not lead on that project, but would support the lead organisation.