EDITORIAL: When it comes accommodation for asylum seekers, lessons have not been learned
From this week's Tipperary Star and The Nationalist
It is hard to believe that this week will mark four months on from the end of the protests outside Racket Hall.
And yet here we are again talking about another facility in another part of Tipperary and this time its Dundrum House Hotel.
Lessons have not been learned.
For the past few weeks, locals have been protesting the transfer of Dundrum House from housing Ukrainian refugees to International Protection Applicants.
This week, three Municipal District Chairmen and the Cathaoirleach of Tipperary County Council, Declan Burgess, have penned an open letter to the Taoiseach.
In their letter, they say the situation, not just in Dundrum but county-wide, is not working and is unsustainable.
They question the thought behind the strategy that causes “havoc” and “toxic division”.
They say councillors cannot answer for something they had no part in or engagement with.
And they are right.
You may agree with the protestors or not, but no doubt continuing on like none of this is happening is only going to lead to more chaos.
That chaos is nationwide.
The movement of people fleeing war and poverty around the globe is a crisis. But the answer is not to create more crises, especially in small towns and villages.
The scenes we have seen in Coolock over the last week are not protests and should be condemned in the strongest terms. But they didn’t happen in a vacuum.
Locals feel ignored. The far right sees an opportunity, and the authorities are failing to control the situation.
Who benefits?
Certainly not communities, not business owners, whose property is plastered on every newspaper and TV screen come six o’clock.
What the councillors in the open letter this week are describing is a very dangerous thing.
It breaks down yet another element of the social contract that we elect people to represent us, and they carry our voice to central Government.
It’s unfair to put local representatives in that position, and it endangers local democracy, which has long been under attack.
It’s a dangerous game, nobody can possibly win.