Reports that the state is considering using shipping vessels to house people claiming asylum here were confirmed in a Dáil response by Minister Roderic O’Gorman on Tuesday.
He was responding to a question from Fianna Fáil TD for Clare, Cathal Crowe, who had asked the Minister to provide a briefing on any plans to use “floating accommodation.”
O’Gorman stated that his Department has already received a number of offers of such accommodation, and that they are now planning to publish a request for tenders.
He also confirmed that they are considering where such vessels might be berthed, and that “several sites are under consideration.”
This follows on reports last week that the Port of Cork was in consultation with O’Gorman’s Department and the marine authorities, but that so far no sites had been selected. It is not expected that such accommodation will come on stream until later in the year, and thus will provide no relief from the current crisis as communities across the state continue to protest against the placement of accommodation centres at different locations.
As Gript reported last year, following on the publication by Ken Foxe of emails secured under the Freedom of Information Act, so-called “floatels” were being considered for use as the Ukrainian refugee crisis emerged after March 2022.
Several offers made on behalf of several interested parties were eventually rejected. One of the concerns expressed by Departmental officials was that some of the suggestions were motivated by “opportunism” on the part of “some who will look to benefit from a crisis.”
There is no shortage of accommodation options, the difficulties are in terms of the willingness to release, and the opportunism of some who will look to benefit from a crisis as we have seen in previous crises, and the need for leadership and co‐ordination.
(email from Yvonne White of Department of Transport, March 23, 2022)
There has certainly been no shortage of such gombeenism, for the want of a better description.
Cities and towns across the country have seen hotels closed as their owners swap the guaranteed and substantial sums to be made from this new business sector for the vagaries of providing accommodation to paying customers. This has had devastating consequences for local communities particularly those dependent to a large degree on tourism.
One of the proposals to use shipping vessels was lobbied for on behalf of a third party by Dublin based PR company Paul Allen and Associates as well as from ML Hospitality. This was that the state would contract cruise ships to be docked at Cork, Cobh, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin Port – and even take over the fishery harbour at Killybegs.
Following several months of consideration, with one company offering three ships with a capacity to house 800 refugees each, the cruise ship option appears to have been abandoned as “not to be appropriate.”
However, whatever reservations that prevented this proceeding 12 months ago appear to have been jettisoned. There is no evidence, however, that any of the problems regarding such proposals – now seemingly centred exclusively on Cork – have been resolved.
As we know, the state concentrated for a time on a whole range of other options including the use of “seminaries, boarding schools, Gormanstown, school gyms, conference centre, Croke Park, Aviva, Curragh camp and army housing, churches” and so on, but seemingly thought better on most of them.
It was also apparent that at one stage the state was putting out feelers to divert GAA and other community sports facilities for the accommodation of Ukrainian refugees, and also presumably the growing number of people claiming asylum from other mostly safe countries.
The response to such feelers presumably persuaded them that it was not a runner. There was also one brainstorming suggestion that two wholly new cities might be built to home Ukrainian and other refugees and putative refugees.
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Longer term should we be building two new cities ‐15 minute ones‐not just for Ukrainians. Could also bring developers on Board to build fast housing.
The Departmental emails reveal that the proposals to use cruise ships were examined in detail, not least with regard to the impact that they would have on the normal operation of the locations where they were to be berthed.
ML Hospitality were offering two cruise ships which together could accommodate 6,400 “guests.”
The attraction of that was that this would represent the equivalent of “2 separate Citywest hotel in size accommodation solutions to the heart of a city such as Dublin.”
In the Departmental consideration of another proposal to site a “floatel” at the quays in Cork City, a positive was that it would be “less likely to encounter such opposition” as might be expected if vessels were berthed at the cruise ship facility at Cobh.
Well, let’s see how that one goes if it is proceeded with.
The overall conclusion, as first indicated in an email dated May 4, 2022, from the Maritime Transport division of the Department of Transport was negative.
On May 27, Tom Sheppard of Minister O’Gorman’s office emailed Claire Guilfoyle also of O’Goman’s Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to inform her that a media inquiry from the Irish Times should preferably inform them that “cruise ships are not under consideration at this point.”
By June it was evident that the marine transport section had “ruled them out” for Dublin Port at least. On June 20, a DCEDIY internal email from Guilfoyle informed officials that the Department of Transport had “confirmed that it would not be appropriate to accept these ships. You can indicate to all potential suppliers that we will not contract cruise ships.”
And that appeared to be that. So we can only wonder what has happened to change the minds of all concerned in the interim.
Is it the case that the crisis in providing accommodation for the growing thousands of people coming to Ireland has reached such a peak that the valid reservations expressed a year ago have now been set aside in the interests of sustaining a policy that is clearly not only unsustainable but has clearly lost the support of a large majority of the state’s own citizens.
No matter what they decide, the growing elephant in the corner remains – fed, as the far left “observers” inform us, by “disinformation.” Except that the disinformation in this case is overwhelmingly coming from the state that keeps many of them in cappuccinos and tofu.
have we brought our current citizens on board with scale of what they are about to face?
(email of March 23, 2022 from White to Ken Spratt of DECDIY)
