Asylum seekers were pictured arriving at a Killarney hotel today, just 24 hours after Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman agreed to a request for his officials to meet local residents to discuss their concerns over the proposals.
The plans to place a number of asylum seekers at the Harmony Inn in the mainly tourist and residential area have sparked widespread outrage from locals, who say the town has taken its fair share of refugees; the town now has around 3,000 Ukrainian and international protection applicants.
Images provided to Gript show a bus transferring the asylum seekers arriving into the town this afternoon, with passengers being dropped off with their belongings at the Harmony Inn on Muckross Road in Killarney.
At least 70 men will be housed in the 22-bedroom guest house after the property owner and the International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) reached an agreement over the contract for the asylum seekers.
But objection is swelling in the local area; a silent protest on Saturday over the plans featured a banner which read ‘Killarney Has Its Fair Share’ and was carried by a group of children in the protest, which was heavily attended by families. It is estimated the crowd numbered between 400 and 500, with tensions in the local area showing no sign of dissipating.
In the last fortnight, Independent Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae raised the issue in the Dáil, saying that he was “very concerned” about the planned placement of 77 asylum seekers at the Harmony Inn on the Muckross Road in the town.
A meeting convened by residents voicing their concern over the issue was attended by 300 people last Sunday week, DeputyHealy-Rae said. The local TD said residents wanted the decision reversed over a lack of surety regarding safety and services in the town in light of the number of asylum seekers and refugees being placed there.
“We seem to be taking way more than our share in Killarney,” he told the Dáil. “The matter of vetting is very important to the people of Killarney. Where are these people coming from? The people of Killarney want to know who is coming in beside them, where they are from and how many different countries they are coming from.”
“We had trouble earlier in the year on the other side of town, and these people are concerned.
“Old and young people, especially women, are fearing for their safety with this number of people being placed beside them in the town of Killarney,” he said.
Tonight in the Dáil, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae slammed the developments today in Killarney, in a renewed takedown of the government’s handling of the situation. In an emotionally charged address, he said he was “very hurt and out of sorts” about “what is taking place on the Muckross Road in Killarney this evening.”
‘THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR,’ SAYS HEALY-RAE
“Seventy-seven single male asylum seekers have arrived,” the TD said, going on to ask where female asylum seekers were. “When we are talking about wars and conflicts we seem to be getting more men, whether they are refugees or asylum seekers.
“We do not know where the women are. Are they fighting the wars? I am being honest. We are talking about an international consultative policy and some forum. We need to have a national policy here to deal with the results of the conflicts all over the world.”
“Killarney and Kerry have taken on their fair share of asylum seekers and refugees. We are full of them and we have enough of them,” he continued:
“In case the Minister of State is not aware, after the asylum seekers arrived, a van came along with a load of e-scooters. Who paid for them?
“They did not pay for them anyway. It is the fellas who are working all over the country and are out early in the morning who are paying for them.
“The asylum seekers were landed in alongside a 94-year-old woman without any consultation whatsoever. I have been begging here for a week or more for the Minister or his team to go and talk to the residents of the Muckross Road. It has not happened.
“I asked that it happen before the asylum seekers arrived or before their arrival was contemplated. They have landed now, and the women and girls that used to walk the Muckross Road morning, noon and night will all stop doing that. They are worried about their safety. On top of that, the tourism economy of Killarney and Kerry is now being compromised on a daily basis.”
We need to sort out our own country first and sort out our own policies. There are more men coming than women,” Deputy Healy-Rae said, adding: “We cannot understand it.”
“He brought over 400 of them to the Killarney hotel last year and they fought between themselves. We want to know where they are coming from. They have to be vetted. If someone was allocated a house inside in Killarney or any part of Kerry by Kerry County Council, they would not be left into it without being vetted.”
In the impassioned address, the TD told colleagues, “This has gone too far. Take it to the rest of them because ye will get it in the neck next year or the year after or whenever it is.”
“The people are waiting for ye to deal with this because ye have not dealt with it,” he added in the scathing speech.
TD Michael Healy-Rae also raised the issue, revisiting local objection on Tuesday during leaders’ questions, as he told the Taoiseach that “the cart has been put before the horse.”
“I put on record that for nearly four decades, I have been providing accommodation to all sectors of society, including in the past couple of years, to Ukrainian families fleeing the war,” the TD and landlord said.
He said that the current situation in Killarney had “risen its head very much in the past few weeks” and refereed to a motion, but forward at a Kerry County Council meeting by Cllr Niall O’Callaghan who had asked that Minister O’Gorman would meet with a group from the town. The motion was passed, with Deputy Healy-Rae saying he was glad a meeting had been organised and agreed on by the Minister:
“I am glad it has been organised by the Minister that people from his Department will meet representatives from this area, but what this highlights is the fact that the cart has been put before the horse,” he said, as he called out the lack of local consultation.
“What we need in situations like this is consultation ahead of time and not, for example what happened in this case. What happened in this case is county councillors, TDs and Senators all were notified after the deal was done.
‘WE HAVE TO PROTECT THE TOURISM PRODUCT’
“I would like confirmation on whether the Taoiseach or the Minister can clarify if an actual contract has been put in place with that particular property,” he added.
Deputy Healy-Rae said it was “important to that we protect what I would call the tourism product in Killarney.”
“Do not get me wrong, Killarney town has risen – as has County Kerry and the rest of the country – to the challenge that has befallen us,” he said. “It would be very wrong and unfair for anybody to point their finger and say it was the Taoiseach’s fault. He did not invade Ukraine.”
“We were left with the situation in which we are but we have to raise questions about the number of people who travel from and jump other countries to come here as international protection applicants seeking protection in this State.
Why are we so attractive as opposed to everywhere else? “ he asked.
“The business people who marched last Saturday were not a group of people who were angry or outraged for the sake of it. These were residents from the Muckross Road and from the housing estates around it and employers from the town, who attended a public meeting. It was what I would call a town hall-style meeting.
“It was a very respectful and sound meeting chaired by two former local representatives and it was held very properly. A number of things were raised at this meeting. Questions were raised for the Minister as to why Killarney was being put in this situation,” he said.
“If the place is wrong and if Killarney town is full, I believe that the Department should recognise that in the interests of protecting local jobs in our community and the tourism product that people have worked on for over 100 years,” he told the Taoiseach, stressing: “There are families steeped in the tradition of hospitality and now they feel their businesses are being put in danger because of this.”
In response, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar confirmed that a contract for the accommodation was in place for asylum seekers at the hotel:
“With respect to the Harmony Inn in Kingscourt, Killarney, the Minister has met the Kerry TDs, the mayors of Kerry and of Killarney, and the chief executive of Kerry County Council,” he said.
“I think that meeting may have been about two weeks ago. The community engagement team in the Department of the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, is engaging with elected representatives in Kerry and will continue to do so. It is also happy to engage with representatives of local residents.
“I understand that a contract is now in place but I do not know the details of that. I appreciate that Kerry now has approximately 685 international protection applicants living in the county.
“As roughly 3% of the population, that is approximately 3% of international protection applicants, but I appreciate there may be particular places within Kerry where the number is high and that this has an impact on local services and the local economy,” he said.
The Taoiseach said he understood people’s concerns, and went on to reference a scheme, through Fáilte Ireland, which he said would help businesses “where their footfall has been affected by the fact that a large proportion of tourist beds have been taken out of the system in order to accommodate people seeking refuge from abroad.”
Responding to this, Deputy Healy-Rae then asserted that a meeting with locals, when the contract had been agreed, was “a waste of time.”
Last Sunday’s meeting, held at Killarney Avenue Hotel, heard that the town was already providing for more than its fair share of asylum seekers and refugees, and that local services could no longer cope.
During the meeting, locals also expressed concern about the living arrangements for the 77 men at the hotel – pointing out that the men would be strangers to each other from different cultures and countries, and would have no facilities to keep them occupied and nothing for them to do at the IPAS centre – conditions that may only lead to more disquiet in the town.
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The fate of Killarney is being decided in Dublin by a minister who got elected on the sixth count and who is a member of a party that holds 12 seats in the Dail and who serves under a Government leader who got elected on the fifth count and who says that they are not seeking the permission of the communities that they have decreed will be demographically reconfigured beyond recognition.
Democracy is a funny thing. It can look a lot like dictatorship.
Fianna fail have 38 seats
Hopefully it’ll be zero come the next election
Roderick O ‘Gorman who struggled into the last seat on the sixth count, has contempt for the Irish people in his mania for taking over hotels and former nursing homes for his ‘refugees’, regardless of local opposition and the cost to the community. His office stated that local concerns were no concern of theirs. He even took over a homeless hostel, where the evicted would be condemned to certain homelessness this winter, had there not been strong intervention. It took fierce opposition to get him stopped as he is nothing but stubborn when he gets an idea in his head. He believes his only obligations are to the international community as he dumps countless more busloads of his ‘refugees’ into an already overloaded system. His is recklessly wiping out the indigenous population and I do not see any seat for him next time. He is working in opposition to the Irish people and their communities and values. This government is wiping out the indigenous population, without any stopping date in sight.
Pippa was not elected but she us MoS. Admittedly, she is highly educated
O Gorman & the rest of the Quisling & Traitors in The Goldmine Leinster House are hell bent on the Destruction of our hard won Republic, that our patriot dead spent 800 years fighting and dying to achieve. It has taken only a hundred years for our native Gombeen puppet political classes to turn it into a Multicultural hell hole and getting worse by the day. Time to take our Country back before we become strangers and a minority in our own land. Take it down from the mast Irish Traitors it’s the Flag we Republicans claim it can never be owned by freestaters for you brought on it nothing but shame.
Give it another generation and these imported people will be numerically the dominant group in town.
I don’t see how Rita. They are almost all men. They can have sex with each other but even the ones who identify as women will never have a child. Their likely future path is to sink ever lower in society. Whatever government is in place in the future the one certainly is that the privileged position that these freeloaders currently enjoy will be progressively eroded. Right now things are as good as they are ever going to be for these bums. They have no women to partner with and very few of them are likely to find an Irish partner. They have no role in Irish Society and are unlikely to every find one. Any diminution in overall employment will make the few who are working very vunreable. Their future is one of boredom and sloth in a B&B in Killarney or as bums standing on windy Irish street corners. In a year or two they will be forming their own criminal gangs and causing a headache for the Guards. They will never make any positive contribution to Irish Society no matter how hard RTE and the media try and pretend otherwise. What a wasted way to live your life. They travel halfway around the world to become bums and beggars on wintery Irish street corners.
This is a government facilitated invasion of Ireland. It has to be stopped at all costs. Destroying sovereignty is the agenda.
Peter Sutherland FG
That’s right Anne.
Did anybody else read those extensive quotes from the Healy-Rae’s in a Kerry accent ?
I know what you mean.
It’s impossible not to .
You can kind of hearing him saying it as you are reading it .
It is eyewatering to realise how quickly and effectively the government can act when it wishes.
You can’t fault Leo’s candour. He has told us what is in store for us. New laws to Harris and shut us up. If we persist in insisting on opposing the undemocratic swamping of Ireland then it’s the batten charge and water cannon for us. Those tactical are not designed to carry a population with you they are to crush us. Croppies lie down is the watchword of this arrogant fool. It won’t end well for anyone neither us or Leo’s mob.
They haven’t grasped the idea that by using the jackboot to keep the people in their place that they will actually drive an underground uprising. Level-headed people who have something positive to offer are being name-called. The very idea of open debate is a thing of the past.
I used to stay in hotels on that road when I was travelling for work. It’s one of the best locations in Killarney. Same road as the INEC, Gleneagles, Holiday Inn, Randles hotel and entrance to the park & racecourse. Close to the town centre. On the actual Ring of Kerry. And it’s now a no-go area for women, old people and anyone who is not up for a fight. Nice one, Roderick!