Tipperary Concerned Residents group has informed Gript that local elected representatives in the county were informed this afternoon by the Community Engagement team of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) that the Dundrum House Hotel has been given a two year contract to accommodate persons who have applied for International Protection.
The hotel had been accommodating Ukrainian refugees under Temporary Protection since 2022. The representatives were informed that the hotel will be able to accommodate a capacity of 277 people in 114 separate rooms. The Department states that there will be family groups placed there.
The population of Dundrum village in South Tipperary is 220.
We reported here last year on the controversy surrounding the existing contract with the owners of the Hotel. The reported beneficial owner at that time was Jeffrey Leo who is currently involved in a court case involving the companies concerned.
However, the contract for the IPAS accommodation 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.
We shall be providing more on this as it comes to hand.
The document also states that “The property is operated by Utmasta Limited who have a 20-year lease on the site and will be operating the site with at least two members of staff on-site 24 hours a day and there will be a manager and / or security staff on site at all times.” This company’s registered office is in Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18.
Two community groups are actively opposing the creation of an IPAS Accommodation centre in the hotel complex by means of a protest at the gate and legal action in the High Court. Separately, investors based in the US are engaged in a legal action in the High Court regarding the “beneficial ownership” of the property.
The Department communication says it is in the process of alerting all state support services in the area so that they can prepare the additional supports which will be needed to assist people settle into the local community. This includes the Departments of Health, Education, Justice, Transport, the HSE, An Garda Síochána, the Local Government Management Agency, the Local Authority integration teams and local development office in South Tipperary.
Local TD, Mattie McGrath, said last year that residents of the tiny village “fear being outnumbered” by a large number of asylum seekers “who were strangers to them”, and who very often “are not actually people actually fleeing war or persecution.”
He added that the government was pushing through an immigration policy on rural Ireland without any respect for “our traditions or culture.”
Last August, they said they were “devastated” as a “small army of Gardaí”, including the Public Order Unit, were used to “push through” three buses of migrants claiming asylum into the village, despite widespread objections and protests.