This article has been updated to include a response from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth.
Parents of a child attending the Salesians primary school in Limerick City have expressed concern after learning that as many as 251 refugees are to be housed on the school grounds.
Deirdre Lawlor who is the mother of a 6 year old attending the school expressed fears regarding the housing of a large number of people saying many of them may be experiencing war related trauma.
Last month the Limerick Post reported that the owners of the site, Limerick Twenty Thirty, “have entered into an agreement with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth to use for an 18-month period, with the centre to open in January.”
Ukrainian refugees are to be housed in the former secondary school building with Lawlor describing the move as “absolutely unacceptable”.
She said the school building has 19 bedrooms meaning that occupants will have to be housed approximately 14 to a room saying this could create a “boiling pot” scenario only metres from a school “with hundreds of children ranging in ages from 4 to 13,” adding that this was “reckless and endangering”.
The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth told Gript,
“Limerick Twenty Thirty DAC, as the owners of the site housing the former secondary school at Fernbank, have entered into an agreement to rent the facility to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for an 18-month period. Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection fleeing the war in Ukraine will be resident there for short-term stays.”
“This temporary accommodation centre will be a first destination for new arrivals fleeing Ukraine into Ireland. The facility comprises the former secondary school at Fernbank with shared sanitary facilities, laundry facilities and dining facilities. Accommodation consists of 19 rooms varying in size and the premises will be staffed on a 24/7 basis. Fire alarms, fire-fighting equipment and security cameras are fitted throughout the common areas.”
Lawlor who says she has “huge empathy” from people fleeing war said assurances that two security guards will be present twenty four hours a day brought her “no peace of mind” describing the situation as a “thoughtless business transaction” that was “of monetary value” to the owners of the building.
She said that while she felt “proud” of Ireland’s response to housing Ukrainians fleeing war, that a ‘hostel like’ school building was simply not an appropriate place to ‘cram’ a large number of people for months on end.
Lawlor’s former partner, Mark O’Donovan, described the area where both the school and the proposed refugee centre stand as an “open ground” saying that fencing was being erected.
Referring to the recent stabbing of a small child outside a school in Dublin City he said, “With what happened in Dublin they’re looking for trouble,”
He said that many locals were not aware that refugees are to be housed in the area saying there are also several other schools nearby.
“Anyone who finds out about it isn’t happy,” he said.
He said that during a recent meeting with the school in which another parent asked why this specific location had been chosen ‘when Limerick has so many other vacant buildings’ parents were told by a County Council representative that the Council was unable to get fire regulation certificates on other buildings.
O’Donovan – himself an electrician – said he found this hard to believe expressing dismay that an email sent to the mayor of Limerick had been answered by Ukrainian Response Accommodation Lead with Limerick City and County Council, Sonja Reidy.
Lawlor said she believes the owners of the building and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth were laying plans ‘well before’ parents at the school were informed saying she felt she would be left worrying about her child “everyday” as the accommodation centre is only “a stone’s throw” from the school entrance.