Following an inconclusive meeting last night with Minister Roderic O’Gorman, community representatives in Rosslare Harbour met again this morning and decided on a significant escalation of their protest against the proposed use of the former Great Southern Hotel to site a second Direct Provision centre in the coastal village.
Following this morning’s meeting in the Garden Café it was decided to immediately begin a picket at the site, and to then proceed with other actions including possible blockade of traffic into the busy Europort terminal. Local Independent Councillor Ger Carthy told Pádraig Byrne of the Wexford People and Irish Independent that “ The people of Rosslare have decided to take a hard stand against the government proposal to facilitate another IPAS centre in Rosslare.”
Councillor Carthy also said that they were planning to “peacefully disrupt the flow of traffic in and out of Rosslare Europort.” The frustration of the local community have not been assuaged by their meeting with Minister O’Gorman who told them last night that the Government “will not and cannot walk away from offers of property which can be used for accommodating refugees.”
As Gript has reported, the relevant EU Directive does in fact allow states to decide on how many applicants they may accept based on their “capacity” to provide accommodation and other services.
That such a limit has been reached has been tacitly admitted by other members of the Cabinet. It is also apparent that the Irish state is almost unique among other EU states in not significantly restricting the numbers of those coming here, even though it has consistently been shown that the vast bulk of applicants are from countries in which there is no internationally recognised conflict or human rights crisis to justify so many people arriving in Ireland.