Anti-migrant rally held in Drogheda days before near fatal attack on Ipas centre

The International Protection Accommodation Services (Ipas) centre in Drogheda, Co Louth, after the building was attacked. Picture: PA

An angry anti-migrant rally was held in Drogheda in the days before the near fatal arson attack on families in a building housing asylum seekers in the town on Halloween night.

One speaker at the protest on Saturday, October 25, previously made online comments about fires at international protection accommodation service (Ipas) centres, and reportedly wrote "burn baby burn" online about a hotel being used to house asylum seekers.

At the Drogheda protest, he claimed that all migrants were provided "four-star accommodation" while some "16,000 Irish people don't know where they're going to sleep tonight".

The latest Department of Housing figures show that homelessness reached a record high in late September with 16,614 people in emergency accommodation, 5,238 of whom were children.

People with citizenship other than Irish made up 50% of these 11,376 homeless adults. Citizenship for children who were homeless was not publicly recorded.

The recent anti-migrant protest in Drogheda also failed to note the latest figures from the Department of Justice, which show that there are 613 people applying for asylum who are also essentially homeless and have no accommodation offer.

A man draped in a Tricolour could be heard shouting abuse at passers-by during the rally. Another man stood near him with his face covered.

Anti-migrant tropes

Far-right violence does not appear out of nowhere, said Emily Duffy, the communications lead with the Hope and Courage Collective. The organisation monitors far-right hate and disinformation.

"We can see that the attack in Drogheda was preceded by a far-right rally in the town the week before. The rhetoric they used was extreme, repeating anti-migrant tropes and disinformation. These narratives then get shared on social media, and are given undue amplification by toxic recommender algorithms.

"This same pattern can be observed before the violent protests in Citywest, and the attack on the Basin Lane Ipas centre in Dublin.

"Social media algorithms boost content that is designed to induce outrage, anger, and fear, and this content spreading widely often preceded violent racist attacks," Ms Duffy said.

"If social media algorithms aren’t tackled, and if elected leaders don’t challenge these harmful narratives head on, we are going to continue to see a rise in racist violence in our communities.”   

Children's ombudsman Niall Muldoon said there was a lack of humanity at the core of attacks such as Friday night’s arson attack on an Ipas centre in Drogheda.

CCTV from the attack showed a masked man pouring accelerant on the building's staircase before setting it alight, trapping people — including four children — upstairs in the burning building.

It was “unconscionable” that children’s lives were put at risk in the attack at the Ipas centre on George’s St, Drogheda, at around 8pm on Friday, Mr Muldoon said. 

'No guaranteed safe space'

“The fact that this comes just a week after violent riots outside another location [Citywest] where children were living, indicates that there is no guaranteed safe space for these children and no recognition of the severe impact these events can have on their lives. 

"The common thread is that these children, and their families, are seeking international protection in Ireland.” 

"Alongside any conversations that are taking place at a governmental or societal level about immigration and how that is dealt with, there needs to be a focus on the principal of respect for human life. 

"We need strong messaging and information to highlight the lack of humanity at the core of these attacks and to spell out the long-term impact this is having not only on the children involved, but on all children looking on and seeing that this is becoming acceptable. 

"We were lucky that children and families did not die at the weekend. But make no mistake, what we are seeing in this arson attack is the ultimate working out of the narrative of hatred toward immigrants — we cannot let that be the case.

“Ireland should be a country where every child is safe going to bed at night.”