Minister’s fury at refugee ‘killer’ claims
Now a second minister has criticised a radio programme, this time for broadcasting claims that a group of refugees were child killers.
Next year, 84 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo are to be resettled in Ireland.
They will spend the first eight weeks here undergoing an orientation programme in a specially designated centre in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo.
During a recent phone-in show on Mid West Radio, based in Ballyhaunis, a caller claimed some of the refugees were child killers, involved in Congo’s civil war.
Integration Minister Conor Lenihan said the claims were “appalling and baseless”, and criticised Mid West for allowing them to be broadcast.
“It is grossly unfair to stigmatise a vulnerable group of people and the fact these allegations were broadcast calls into question the responsibility of all concerned.”
The matter was raised by Mayo Fine Gael TDs John O’Mahony and Michael Ring, who asked the minister if he could “allay the fears” of locals and provide details about the refugees.
Mr Lenihan said the caller alleged 100 teenage killers were being freed from Congo detention centres and resettled here.
“It was alleged these people were, since the ages of eight or nine years, programmed and trained to kill and... were disturbed and dangerous teenagers. These are appalling and baseless allegations.”
Mr Lenihan said the facts were that nine families, consisting of 29 adults and 55 children (84 in total), had been interviewed.
On average, the families had spent 11 years in refugee camps, and 30 of the 55 children had been born and raised in the camps. Many of the refugees had some type of medical need, he added.
The caller to Mid West “was not present in the camps” when Government officials had been carrying out the selection process in tandem with the UN refugee agency, he said.
But Mid West presenter Tommy Marren, on whose show the claims were made, said the caller, an ex-soldier now involved in security and based in the Congo, was “ standing behind what he said”.
Meanwhile, Mr Lenihan said once the refugees had undergone the eight-week orientation programme in Ballyhaunis, they would be moved to other parts of the country for permanent resettlement.
* Thomas Crosbie Holdings, the parent company of the Irish Examiner, has a shareholding in Mid West Radio.
