Armed Gardaí required to quell riots; the Muslim feast of Ramadan described as a “flashpoint” that had led to “significant violent incidents”; reports of serious injuries; and more.
This was just some of what was recorded in a draft report by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) on the refugee accommodation centre at Citywest – which was released to journalist Ken Foxe of The Story.ie under a Freedom of Information request.
An inspection team made up of IHREC members, Sinéad Gibney, Stephen Collins, Rebecca Keatinge and Nuala Connolly, paid a visit to the refugee accommodation centre at Citywest on the outskirts of Dublin on April 26.
The Commissioners inspected the facilities and met with Principal Officer Tom Talbot, the manager of the centre, as well as officials on site from the HSE, the Department of Justice, immigration officers and members of the International Office of Migration (IOM). The first thing to be noted is that while people from Ukraine and other countries were in the same building, they were segregated and accorded different treatment.
Refugees from the war in Ukraine are categorised as Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection (BOTP) while the others, very often from countries in which there is no war or other circumstances to justify their seeking asylum here, are applicants for International Protection (IP.) This of course is a bone of contention among the NGOs and left liberals generally. The IHREC itself has whinged about the “two tier system” and are would obviously prefer that anyone who arrives here is fast tracked into housing, social welfare, drivers’ licenses and more.
Refugees from Ukraine are moved almost immediately once their credentials are verified. The real pressures on what Talbot admitted as “capacity being above bed count” are the large numbers of mostly single men who arrive each day from Dublin airport.
The numbers are unpredictable and Talbot told the IHREC inspectors that they only knew what demands were expected of them at around 5pm each evening when the latest batch arrived. They did attempt seemingly successfully to process and despatch the genuine arrivals from Ukraine who “can be transported to accommodation that evening.”
The headline Foxe selected from the draft report was the IHREC claim that the mainly young men from Georgia and other safe countries were held in an “intense, oppressive atmosphere.” However, as the report itself demonstrates, most of the problems identified were of the men’s own making.
Ironically for a lobby group that insists along with the rest of the establishment that Irish communities ought to have no difficulty in adjusting to large groups of mostly random young men, the IHREC report notes approvingly that at Citywest “consideration is given to nationalities in dorms to promote harmonious living.”
Elsewhere, they also mention that “clear efforts made to facilitate some cultural and religious differences.” The young men are segregated in other words. So much for the Great Big Melting Pot of integration.
They also noted Talbot’s reference to the fact that “the diversity of the population” had, along with overcrowding, been one of the issues that had led to “the recently reported riots, serious injuries etc.”
The report says that a serious incident had included “the use of knives, chairs being thrown, and other assaults”.
The fact that around 500 of the men there identified as Muslim had meant that Ramadan had been a “flashpoint” that had led to “significant violent incidents.”
Really. So one might start to imagine that perhaps Citywest is a microcosm, a sort of laboratory, for the “significant violent incidents” – most recently in France – that seem invariably to emanate from such enforced diversity.
You might also perhaps muse that it takes a serious level of disconnect to believe that what clearly does not work in Citywest might work in a Dublin working class community or a rural community in Clare. That is, if you fall for such “tropes.”
One incident during Ramadan had required 35 security staff and 35 Gardaí including “armed Gardaí and riot Gardaí” to bring it under control after one and a half hours. The paragraph following this disturbing report is redacted, so one can only assume that it contained even more stuff that the likes of me might transform into a For Roysh “trope.” That’s the sort of me.
Also of concern was the safety of children accommodated at Citywest. Most of the children appeared to have been of Ukrainian families and the delegation did not see any children while they were visiting. Nonetheless as a section of the draft report demonstrates, the management of the centre regarded the safety of women and children as problematic.
Among the issues was the “problem of age disputed minors accommodated with adults in IP hub.” Given that there are horror stories of young boys being raped in Calais and other camps by groups from the same places from which most of the young men in Citywest originate, this is not something that can be ignored under the pretence that the potential clients of the NGOs are all racially categorised perpetually innocent infants capable of no harm or blameless if they err.
“Efforts were made previously to ensure that women and children separated from single men but given the openness of the space, it is hard to see how effective that could be and the manager was evidentially not happy about the mix of residents,” the report notes.
One would imagine that this would be the over-riding concern of those who have taken on the mantle of Care Bears to the Wretched of the Earth. And yet, curiously enough, this was not recorded as one of the priorities raised by Sinéad Gibney when she met with Junior Minister Joe O’Brien in February even though reports of the danger presented to women and children should be well known, as reported by Gript’s Fatima Gunning.
Principal Officer and site manager Tom Talbot shared his belief that if numbers in Citywest were to increase even further that “volatility and violence will increase too.” It was therefore his position that he “refuses to take more than the current numbers despite the fact that they may be made homeless.” The last comment might raise the question as to whether the IHREC has considered the obvious conflict between the “right” not to be homeless on the part of opportunistic immigrants and the safety concerns of people who have to deal with them every day.
If there is an overall conclusion to be reached from the documents which detail some of the interference by the IHREC it is that they clearly believe that their own conception of themselves as experts on human rights trumps the actual experience and professionalism of those who have to deal with a mounting problem that – let us call a spade a spade here – was created by people like Gibney from their ideological ivory tower.
That arrogance and disrespect for the people who spend every working day dealing with mostly bogus and opportunistic migrants is underlined by the criticism that the IHREC draft report makes of the people working for International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS).
On the off chance that they are not planning to leave this in the final report, if they ever get around to publishing it in anything like the draft form, so here it is:
“The residents’ day to day welfare and well-being depends entirely on the staff on the ground in the facility.
To put it another way, IPAS are of little or no support to the residents or to the staff on the ground, Indeed, their modus operandi may be contrary to the well-being of the IP applicants and, in trying to assign as many IP applicants as possible to an already overcrowded centre with a history of violence and disorder, it may in fact put people – both staff and residents – at risk.”
They never seem to pause to reflect on the fact that it is not the IPAS staff, nor the Gardaí, nor the women and children in the centres, nor the communities that have these men foisted on them who are responsible for the “violence and disorder” of which they speak.
All of this is clearly of little importance once the Nice People get to prove their Niceness and Sanctimoniousness come hell or high water.
Enough already.