Bacik: Local representatives need to know about emergency accommodation plans

Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik said she is concerned by the actions of 'sinister actors' from the far right who were spreading misinformation

The property was bought by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and was to be used for families who needed temporary accommodation. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik has said it is crucial that local representatives are given clear notification of any plans to provide emergency accommodation in the area.

It comes as a pub earmarked for homeless people was burned down in Ringsend, Dublin — an area that Ms Bacik represents — over the weekend.

The property was bought by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and was to be used for families who needed temporary accommodation. However, locals believed it was to be used to house single male refugees only.

Gardaí are now investigating after the property on Thorncastle Street was set on fire on Sunday morning. Ms Bacik said she was concerned by the actions of “sinister actors” from the far right who were spreading misinformation.

“Every effort must be made to assist the gardaí in their investigation into the fire” now that it had been confirmed that the fire in the former Shipwright pub had been started deliberately.

Ms Bacik said that local representatives had not been informed by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive about plans to provide accommodation for homeless families in the former pub.

That was “most unfortunate”, she told RTÉ's Morning Ireland as she commended Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman and his department on their “greatly improved” communications with local representatives.

Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

The Labour Party had a proud history of being a party of equality, she said.

“There's no space in our party for any anti-migrant views or any racist views," she said.

When asked about comments made by a Labour Party local election candidate Carol Reynolds about “too many immigrants”, Ms Bacik said that Ms Reynolds had made a full apology and the party was conducting an investigation “to establish the circumstances that led to the comments being made and indeed the making of the video by individuals who may have been associated with the far right".

Ms Bacik said she would point out to anyone who complained about “unvetted migrants” that under the Geneva Convention, people were entitled to claim asylum in Ireland and that they were in fact vetted.

“So this vetting nonsense is a complete mess. It's being spread by the far right. We do have a system in place through our immigration processes to ensure that people are checked.” It was an “absolute fallacy” that Ireland was full, she said.

Ireland was a country that “should and must indeed welcome those who come here seeking refuge from persecution or war. And we also must welcome those who come here providing the very needed skills and expertise, those who drive our busses, who mind children, who work in our hospitals, our health care settings.

“I think all of us are aware that our health care, our retail, our hospitality, none of this could function without those who come here to give us the benefit of their skills and their expertise, just as my father's family did,” she concluded.