Gript has been informed that people who have objected to the placing of an IPAS accommodation centre at the former Crown Paints site in Coolock have been given assurances that no work will take place there this month.
An official source told objectors that the company had given assurances that no work will take place in the month of November.
This was partly hinted at last week in the High Court when Counsel for Townbe, the company that is the registered owner of the site, said that the company must satisfy a number of conditions including the safety of the site for persons working there before a contract for the provision of accommodation for persons applying for International Protection is finalised.
Bernard Dunleavy SC represented the proposed developers of the site against an injunction sought by Melissa Kelly, Amanda Farrelly and Alan Croghan.
Among their objections were that the correct planning procedures were not in place and that Townbe intended to remove asbestos from the site without proper notification.
In yesterday’s High Court ruling against Kelly, Farrelly and Croghan Justice David Holland concentrated on views which he personally found objectionable in the submission made by the applicants for the injunction. Among them were arguments with regards to the overall impact which applicants claim the siting of asylum centres in the state will have on the demographics and social stability of the state.
Justice Holland criticised the applicants for what he claimed had been an attempt to use the High Court to advance what he described as “meaningless conspiracy theories.” His own language, even as reported in other media, might also be interpreted as being based on his own subjective opinion with its references to what he claimed was a “vicious narrative” which he implied carries echoes of a time when he claimed such had led to “racist xenophobia, discrimination and, history teaches us, not infrequently far worse”.
In rejecting an application for an injunction against a plan to use Dundrum House in Tipperary as an IPAS accommodation centre in July, Justice Holland stated clearly that communities had no right to decide or to exercise a veto on who might live among them.
That is arguably a subjective opinion and one that it can be argued has been interpreted in other cases to have the opposite implications where local residents have in effect been granted such a veto on developments which they have argued would have a detrimental impact both upon their own and their community’s well-being.
In February 2023, Justice Holland himself quashed a planning permission for student accommodation near University College Dublin following objections by two local residents. The two Goatstown residents had claimed that the proposed multi storey development would, among other things, intrude upon the requirement for open spaces and in particular upon their own back gardens.
Justice Holland accepted their arguments, in effect giving them a veto. In fact, the planning process does allow residents (or anyone, in fact) to obtain a veto on what will be built in their area – and therefore who will live there. The cynical amongst us might say that giving such a veto is the primary purpose of Irish planning law, particularly given the continued existence of local needs provisions. However, the government has ensured that planning permission can be bypassed by those seeking to provide asylum accommodation.
With regards to the Coolock site, it is interesting that, according to Bernard Dunleavy on behalf of Townbe and its principals, there is no contract signed for the provision of an IPAS accommodation centre at the site.
As readers of this site and others will be aware, however, there clearly is an offer on the part of Townbe to develop the former Crown Paints site to be used as an IPAS centre. When controversy over this followed local protests during the Summer Minister Roderic O’Gorman specifically stated that the site was to be used as a centre. He further stated that the IPAS community engagement team had informed local councillors of this in March.
A number of things are certainly clear. Firstly, that despite the attempts to dismiss the local protest, they have been clearly effective in halting whatever plans were in motion, until at least the end of this month.
Secondly; that the principals in the affair have been sufficiently exercised by this to invest considerable resources in resisting that attempt and to persuade the public that there are all sorts of grounds, other than the obvious large financial incentive, why this facility ought to open.
And finally; that despite the concerted and relentless attempt to dismiss the objections on all sorts of ground including the heated dismissal of broader arguments – for only the advocates of mass immigration have any coherent intellectual position it would seem – that they might appear to be of sufficient weight to engage the best minds of the Irish political, media, and even judicial establishment.