The owners of Racket Hall, which was the only hotel in Roscrea and controversially became an IPAS centre despite sustained local opposition in 2024, have been refused planning permission on appeal for a major extension.
Swiftcastle Ltd received €7 million in payments for asylum services in just 18 months after the conversion to IPAS, and continue to pull down €320,000 per month from the state, with a further €2 million in total received in Quarters 3 and 4 of 2025.
The company had an application for permission to create an extension on the former hotel to include 60 bedrooms refused by Tipperary County Council in September, on the grounds that it would be in contravention of the Tipperary county development plan. The Council also said the area in question isn’t zoned for residential living, pointing to the lack of pedestrian infrastructure and public transport connections.
The Planning Officer also raised concerns regarding the “expansion of a Direct Provision Centre where there already is an overconcentration of such on foot of exempted development” – since “3 large IPAS centres are already operating in Roscrea – which due to exemptions are not [development] plan-led”.
Swiftcastle then appealed the decision to An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) in October, arguing that a shortage of asylum accommodation nationwide meant that the ability to facilitate persons seeking protection “cannot be plan-led”.
They argued that the Department of Justice had stated the need to accommodate “unprecedented” numbers of asylum seekers after the Covid 19 period”.
“The application was made as an attempt to provide additional and much needed direct provision accommodation,” the IPAS providers noted in their appeal.
However, An Coimisiún Pleanála upheld Tipperary County Council’s original decision – and found that “an extension to a Direct Provision Accommodation Centre is a form of
residential accommodation and as such the Planning Authority [Tipperary County Council] were correct in their assertion.”
“Having regard … to the location of the appeal site, which is situated outside of the settlement boundary of Roscrea, in an area where residential development is limited, the distance to Roscrea town centre, and the lack of pedestrian infrastructure and public transport connections, it is considered that the proposed plan would be contrary to the settlement strategy,” the decision read.
The planning refusal has been welcomed by local politicians, but one TD said that Roscrea has still been left without a hotel and that the truth was that too much of a burden was already being placed on the town with 3 IPAS centres.
“People feel that the town is being stripped of amenities and that their opposition to what’s happening is being ignored,” Independent TD Mattie McGrath said. He added that the planned extension would have covered the car park, which was essential to any use of the property given its location.
And he hit out at what he said were false promises in 2024 made regarding a community hotel to replace Racket Hall in 2024. “That was never going happen – it was just a way of distracting the people at a time when there was huge anger at what happened in Racket Hall.
“The truth is that the owners of hotels all over the country know that they can make far more by switching to IPAS,” he added. “The amount being paid for asylum accommodation needs to be cut by two-thirds, take the incentive away.”
IPAS CENTRE FORCED THROUGH IN 2024
The Racket Hall hotel controversially became an asylum centre in January 2024 despite significant local opposition and protest. There was considerable upset at the loss of the town’s only hotel as a venue for family occasions, tourist accommodation, and other events.
At the time, journalist Darren Keegan said that “a phalanx of public order Gardaí have kettled protesters at Racket Hall Hotel in Roscrea as asylum seekers enter the premises”.
Local Councillor Séamie Morris, who sharply critical of the decision to close the only hotel in Roscrea and turn it into a centre for migrants claiming asylum, said that the actions today were a “kick in the teeth” for the people of Roscrea, who he said had a “downgraded Garda station”.
“When it comes to policing people’s profits there is no shortage of Gardaí. This is a kick in the teeth for the people of Roscrea who have a downgraded Garda station,” he said.
Mattie McGrath told Gript that morning that there was a deep sense of shock and sadness that the government would use the Gardaí against its own people. “It’s a sad day for Ireland. It may be a tipping point, as people have just had enough,” he said.
“The government is totally out of touch and proving itself more anti Irish by the day. It’s a case of “croppy lie down” once again,” he said.
The following month, local women in Roscrea held a sustained protest at the town’s Garda Station this evening, saying that they did not feel safe in the town after news of an alleged incident involving a women and her children.
As reported by Matt Treacy in January 2024, Swiftcastle directors are listed as Allen McEnery, Donal Keating, and Jody O’Sullivan. McEnery is also a director of Swiftcastle Holdings Unlimited which has the same address as Swiftcastle Roscrea at the Quality hotel, Youghal, County Cork. McEnery was general manager of Quality Hotels for ten years prior to taking the position of managing director with Swiftcastle (Roscrea.)
The other directors of Swiftcastle Holdings along with McEnery are Derek Scully and Saif Ullah Mehr, who is also listed as the company secretary. Scully is also listed as a director along with Malone Secretaries of Codelix and Coziq, both of which companies have been involved in the operation of asylum accommodation centres.
Sailf Ullah Mehr is a director along with Scully of Heronwell, which has also done well from being awarded contracts for the provision of accommodation for Ukrainian refugees. This would suggest that Swiftcastle, in common with the other companies connected to Scully, has decided that the provision of such centres is currently a far more attractive option than selling beds and beef or salmon to tired and hungry tourists.
Why would they not? Heronwell was incorporated on January 25, 2022 which was excellent timing as it has since then drawn down €13,449,690 in payments for the accommodation of the Ukrainian refugees who began to arrive after the Russian invasion in February 2022. Heronwell claimed to have just 3 employees at the end of 2022, and to have had an operating profit of €1,500. Its principal activity was given as “the provision of accommodation for refugees.”
Two other companies of which Scully is a principal, Coziq and Codelix, were already providing accommodation for International Protection claimants in Direct Provision prior to the Ukrainian war. Between the beginning of 2021 and the last release of payment data from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) for the second quarter of 2023, Coziq had drawn down €7,036,870, and Condelix had been paid €4,412,416.
That amounted to a total of €24,889,976 in payments to the three companies of which Scully is a director; making it one of the most successful of native Irish companies involved in this challenging sphere.