Mick Clifford: Selective approach of some accommodation providers heaps trauma on refugees

The Department of Integration is now forced to juggle between providers who are willing to take anybody who needs a bed and those who are more selective.

Slogans and signs at the Skellig Star Hotel in Caherciveen, Co Kerry. The heavy lifting in providing solace to refugees is being disproportionally borne by some small communities, usually at the further reaches from the power centres, rather than those which might be better equipped to carry a fair load. Picture: Alan Landers

Ireland of the welcomes is now coming with terms and conditions attached. 

Last Friday, 80 Ukrainian war refugees were informed that they were being moved out of Caherciveen, to be transferred in the first instance, to Tralee. These people are among 220 men, women, and children from the war-torn country living in the Skellig Star hotel in the south Kerry town. 

The move is to accommodate asylum seekers moving to the hotel. Many of those are also fleeing war in their countries which generally tend to be from the underdeveloped world. There is every expectation that had the move gone ahead, the remaining 140 Ukrainian residents would be told in the coming weeks that they also must leave and go elsewhere. 

A campaign locally to stop the move has resulted in it being “paused”. The Ukrainians have arrived in Caherciveen over the last year. Since the beginning of the war, the population of the town has increased from just under 1,000 to nearly 1,500, including those who are being accommodated in other centres in the town and its hinterland. 

That has brought challenges. Services are stretched. Schools have had to deal with a big influx of children for whom English was not their first language. The local national school has seen its pupil numbers soar by nearly 50%. 

There are two GPs serving the town and both are due to retire in the near future. Sourcing doctors to fill rural posts is extremely difficult across the country right now. Enticing a young GP to move to a rural outpost in which he or she may have an enormous client list is going to be a major challenge.

Another issue that arises is the impact on the local economy. 

One of the families who were to be moved from Caherciveen on Tuesday (left to right); Fr Patsy Lynch, Tymofii Katunin, Yuliia Kotora, Vlad Katunin, Geraldine O'Sullivan (Secretary of Scoil Saidhbhín) and Treasa Cronin, (Principal of Scoil Saidhbhín). Photo: Alan Landers

The main industry on the Iveragh peninsula of which the town is the capital, is tourism. But right now there is nowhere for tourists to stay, so the local spend in shops, restaurants, and for services is extremely precarious. 

Despite all that, the community has got on with it, inviting in the new arrivals and making concerted efforts to integrate them. In an area that has suffered depopulation in recent decades, jobs have also been found for the town’s newest residents. 

Ukrainians are working now in local hairdressers and in the Skellig Chocolate factory out the road in St Finian’s Bay. A few chefs – a valued resource these days – have also found employment. In the round, Caherciveen is managing the challenges and by any stretch doing more than its fair share to help fleeing refugees build a new life far from their home. 

The success of the whole operation has featured in international media, with local boy made good Donie O’Sullivan reporting for CNN on how this small town in a corner of Ireland is answering the call. 

Then last Friday along came the letters from the Department of Integration, threatening further upheaval. For the Ukrainians who have integrated it means that the new life they are attempting to carve out is being taken from them. For the local community, the proposed move represents an instruction to tear it up and start again.

“This (integrating the refugees) wasn’t easy,” Stephanie Mahey, of the Caherciveen community group, told Morning Ireland yesterday. “It was hard work, our services are stretched to capacity.” But, she added, moving them now “would break the spirit of our local community. We are planning a party for the June weekend to celebrate everybody”.

Roderic O’Gorman’s department is under extreme pressure, scrambling to find beds wherever it can during a housing emergency. As of last February, the State was accommodating over 74,000 refugees, including 47,227 Ukrainians and 23,382 asylum seekers. 

In recent months some asylum seekers have been forced to sleep on the streets of Dublin. Exacerbating the problem is the reluctance of some accommodation providers to take refugees other than Ukrainians.

This was related to Irish Examiner political correspondent Ciara Phelan last January, at a time when protests were being exploited by far-right elements. Junior Minister Joe O'Brien yesterday confirmed this approach by accommodation providers. 

“The protests and some commentary at these protests are making people nervous about accommodating asylum seekers,” according to the government source. “Providers are fearful that some people protesting will cause trouble or potential damage to property,” the Examiner reported.

In reality, this scenario predated the protests. Most of the residents in the Citywest Reception Centre in Dublin are asylum seekers because of the difficulty in finding them more permanent accommodation.

The problem led last year to moves to transfer Ukrainians from Killarney to Co. Mayo because a fresh provider there would only take the Eastern Europeans. The resistance is informed by more than just fears by the providers. 

Some among them have adopted the selective approach because of concerns of a backlash within local communities. Whether this is down to blatant racism, the preponderance of asylum seekers being young males or for other reasons is not entirely clear, but most likely is a combination of a number of factors. 

The result is that instead of merely matching requirements for all who need accommodation, the department is now forced to juggle between providers who are willing to take anybody who needs a bed and those who are more selective. As a result, refugees who have attempted to make new homes for themselves are sometimes being juggled off elsewhere.

In Caherciveen, the owner of the Skellig Star is not from the community and does not live there. He may well factor in local considerations in how he runs his business but his relationship with the town is certainly not the same as would be the case if he was a native or lived there.

Following protests against the removal of Ukrainians who had made their home in Killarney last year, a decision was taken to allow them remain, and extra accommodation was sourced for the asylum seekers who were due to replace them. The town is under serious pressure as a result, but it is managing.

On Morning Ireland, Ms Mayer made clear that Caherciveen was willing to accept some asylum seekers but absorbing any considerable number into a small town in which one-in-three people are already refugees would, presumably, be extremely difficult. 

For now, those who have made their home there are being allowed to stay, but it remains to be seen how this will develop. What is once again highlighted in this latest controversy is that the selective approach of some accommodation providers is heaping further trauma on all those displaced by violence. 

It also illustrates that the heavy lifting in providing solace to refugees is being disproportionally borne by some small communities, usually at the further reaches from the power centres, rather than those which might be better equipped to carry a fair load.