There continues to be strong local opposition to yesterday’s announcement that an IPAS centre holding 277 will go ahead in the tiny village of Dundrum in Co Tipperary, as has been expressed by local communities, a number of Councillors, and a TD for the constituency.
Local Independent TD, Mattie McGrath, said that he and other public representatives had been texted by the Department of Integration “to say that the contract is going ahead and that the arrivals are expected shortly”.
“People feel utterly betrayed by the authorities,” he said. “There is utter frustration and despondency and disbelief that the government ignores its own guidelines regarding the use of the only hotel in a village or town – and also ignores guidelines against changing demographics by more than 5%”.
“Simon Harris stood up in the Dáil when I raised this issue and said that ‘a pause’ would be placed on the situation – yet now we’re told that a two year contract has been placed,” he said.
“The local people have said they will literally be outnumbered, given that Dundrum only has a population of 220 while we’re told that Dundrum House Hotel can host 277 asylum seekers,” he added.
He also slammed the situation where the Dáil “is not sitting again” and said that responsibility for placing asylum centres was “in limbo” as it was being transferred from the Department of Integration to the Department of Justice. “Nothing constructive has happened since the election, the few days we’ve taken up with rows over speaking rights, and now the people of Dundrum are being treated like this and no-one is answerable,” he said.
The annoyance over the lack of information, and the fact that assurances had been given that the proposal was on hold, is widely shared.
On March 25, Fine Gael Councillor Mary Hanna Hourigan who was elected for the Cashel-Tipperary area last June, told Tipp FM that a decision by the state to turn Dundrum House Hotel into an IPAS centre had been “paused.”
She said that she had contacted the Department of Integration to ask that a hold would be put on any awarding of a contract until the ongoing High Court case concerning the ownership of the hotel – still nominally with Jeffrey Leo according to the Companies Registration Office – as well as various planning issues are resolved.
Councillor Hourigan, according to the Tipp FM report, stated that “everything will stall now while the Chief State Solicitor is investigating the situation.”
She had raised the issue in response to a briefing from the Community Engagement Unit of the Department to Tipperary County Council on March 11. They had said that the contract was ready to be signed, but Councillor Hourigan said that this could not take place until the ownership and planning issues were resolved in court.
I contacted Councillor Hourigan to ask her if she was disappointed with the decision to proceed given that the issues which she had raised as an objection to the contract being signed have not yet been resolved. I had received no response prior to publication. In fairness to Councillor Hourigan, she had raised the concerns in good faith, and is not responsible for whatever information she was given by others.
I also contacted all of the other elected Councillors for the south west Tipperary area asking them had they also been “informed in the days prior to the announcement that the proposal for an IPAS centre had been “paused” or set aside?”
Independent Councillor Liam Browne told Gript that he has huge concerns not only about the impact that this will have on the community, but on the awarding of the contract. Councillor Browne said that he had told both Council officials and Department representatives of the danger of even small communities being “ghettoized” by “short sighted decision making at national level.”
He said that a small village like Dundrum, and its neighbour in Knockavilla, are not equipped to cope with the demands being placed on local schools, where the educational needs of the children already there are inevitably impacted negatively.
Councillor Browne said that he has raised the “disgraceful awarding of a two-year contract to a company that has one registered director with an address in Spain” – adding that the contract had been awarded “while court cases concerning the current ownership are ongoing and unresolved.”
As reported by Gript yesterday, the contract for the IPAS accommodation in Dundrum has been awarded to a new company called Utmasta Limited that is based in the Sandyford industrial estate in south county Dublin.
According to company records lodged with the CRO the company was only set up in January this year. Its sole director is Ana Maria Ferandez Sanchez and there are no details provided as to who owns the company. Sanchez has an address in Majorca and is also listed as a director of a company called Skeaghcoln Limited that was set up on the same day as Utmasta and also provides no ownership or shareholder details.
The only other Councillor to respond was Tipperary County Council Chair Declan Burgess of Fine Gael. He said that he had “found out yesterday (15/4/25) via email from the department at 4.02pm that the contract has been signed.” He did not say whether he had been told that the awarding of the contract had been “paused” as stated by his party colleague Councillor Hourigan.
Councillor Burgess said that he had not investigated Utmasta, the company who has been awarded the contract but that he had “raised concerns about the suitability of this contract and lPAS location. I believe the Dundrum House location isn’t suitable for a large-scale IPA’s centre. This is a small community, and it has been doubled in size by the swipe of a pen.”