According to The Kerryman: “two-hundred Ukrainian refugees are to arrive in Portmagee in the coming weeks”.
The small town of Portmagee, or so the 2016 census records, has a population of 123 people. It is expected that the refugees will live in local holiday homes.
The town, named after famed smuggler, Captain Theobald Magee, is located in Uíbh Rathach or the Iveragh Peninsula, in Co Kerry and is a well-known departure point for tourists travelling to visit Skellig Mhichíl,
The paper reports that the addition of 200 Ukrainians to the town will bring the number of refugees now living in the Peninsula to more than 1,000.
“Fifty of the 200 refugees have already arrived, with the remainder expected in the coming weeks. It is understood they have been in Ireland for some time and are coming from Maynooth to Kerry,” reporter Sinéad Kelleher writes.
She adds that “hundreds” of refugees are living in the nearby town of Cahersiveen, mostly in hotels such as the Ring of Kerry Hotel and the Skellig Star Hotel.
Cahersiveen has a population of 1,016 people according to the last census.
The Kerryman reports that locals are anxious about the ability of schools to manage – and have concerns about access to medical services given the huge increase in population numbers.
Over a thousand refugees are also estimated to be now living in the town of Kenmare, which only has a population over double that number in the 2016 Census.
It is telling that while rural and working-class areas are left feeling overwhelmed by the crisis, more affluent areas, where most of the policymakers and legislators live, have taken far fewer migrants or refugees.
Areas such as Blackrock and Killiney in South Co. Dublin, for example, have taken tiny numbers of refugees according to the Central Statistics Office.
The leafy suburbs in the Killiney/Shankill area has taken just 57 Ukrainian refugees, according to latest figures. The private schools in Killiney won’t be disrupted by taking in students who don’t speak English and are new to the country. The medical practices in Blackrock won’t scramble to make room for hundreds of people in need of services.
Peculiar, isn’t it, that Bray which is further out from Dublin city than Killiney, but which has fewer wealthy citizens with political clout, has been given far more refugees?
Instead, as the CSO map below shows, in Dublin its the North Inner City (where 1,542 refugees were living as at 07 August) which has taken in significant numbers of people, despite the area already struggling with a host of social problems including drug deaths, entrenched social deprivation, and a lack of housing.
It would be interesting to see the correlation between where the politicians, policymakers, journalists, NGO chiefs live and where most refugees have now been placed. All those with power and wealth – the people who decided that Ireland must take an unlimited number of refugees – generally don’t live in the areas where services, schools, housing, and more become overwhelmed when the numbers of migrants rise exponentially.
Meanwhile, the Kingdom, a county which has recorded a lower household disposable income than surrounding counties, seems to be taking a disproportionately large number of refugees – and, if the pattern is the same as in other parts of the country, this is usually happening without consultation.
In Kinnegad, as in Finglas and elsewhere, the people of the area weren’t even told that dozens, perhaps, hundreds of people were about to arrive in their community – even though these people were usually not vetted by gardai. In fact, the arrogance of the establishment has become so ingrained in regard to migration that the authorities don’t even usually bother to tell local councillors.
The disrespect shown to local people is actually astonishing. Clearly those in power have no respect or regard for the Irish people, to the point where they believe they have the right to bring in hundreds of new people to a community without even bothering to talk to the people who actually live there first.
This sorry mess is not the fault of the Ukrainian people who have come here in response to the urgings of the Irish government who stupidly and falsely declared that there was no limit to what this small island could take in.
It will only be a matter of time before this whole sorry mess comes to an even sorrier conclusion.
