Mayo councillors vote to withdraw cooperation from department over asylum-seeker strategy
Was Earlier Mayo An Ballinrobe Protest Month Mckeown Co Immigration Held Conor This Picture: Anti In
Councillors on Mayo County Council have voted unanimously to pass a motion instructing its chief executive to withdraw cooperation with the Department of Equality.
The motion, which was brought by independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne, calls for all cooperation to be withdrawn "until such time as an agreed strategy is put in place to properly co-ordinate the provision of additional services for the communities hosting refugees and international protection applicants".
About 6,000 asylum seekers have been housed in the county, which has a population of 137,000. Councillors have argued the refugee population makes up 3.84% of people in Mayo, as opposed to 1.53% in Dublin.
Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn brought an amendment to the motion which "requests the Irish Government to revoke the European Union (Planning and Development) (Displaced Persons from Ukraine Temporary Protection) Regulations 2022".
It also called for a replacement of emergency planning laws for migrant housing with a bill which would extend those laws to affordable housing.
Mr Flynn told the the "radical" move was necessary to avoid "discord". He said "faceless speculators" were driving Government strategy by purchasing hotels and B&Bs and offering them to Government for use as asylum-seeker housing.
He said the "vast majority" of this accommodation was being used for tourists before the migrant crisis.
"This has been building, we came close to passing something similar last April. There's a lack of a Government strategy around transport, housing, medical facilities. There's also an issue around tourism.
"We've taken 35% of tourist accommodation out of use, which has serious issues on downstream business and makes the base rates of remaining accommodation more expensive. Croagh Patrick visitor numbers are down 50% [on] pre-covid.
"We've asked TDs, ministers and members of Government to intervene. We've taken a fairly radical step, but we felt it was necessary to avoid that societal breakdown which we've warned about."
Earlier this month, there was a protest in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, outside the former JJ Gannon’s Hotel after it emerged there were plans to accommodate 50 international protection applicants in the building.
It was stood down after the Department of Integration said it would be used to house families and children.
Earlier on Tuesday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said a special package for the 10 areas that have taken in the highest numbers of Ukrainians and-asylum seekers is to be put in place to support communities.