Galway fire: Garda not told hotel was to be used for asylum seekers, Harris says

The Garda received no notification from Government a disused hotel in Co Galway had been designated as a centre for asylum seekers and so lost opportunities to increase safety around it, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has said.

The fire that destroyed the Ross Lake House Hotel in Rosscahill on Saturday night, just days before it was to be opened to international protection applicants, was now the subject of a “major” criminal investigation.

Mr Harris said if the Garda had been notified it could have performed risk assessments and could have offered safety advice to the property owners. However, in the case of Ross Lake House, gardaí realised the building had been designated for asylum seekers only when contacted by local councillors. “The notification was through local sources and then just the evidence of work being carried out,” he said.

Mr Harris made his remarks at a public meeting of the Policing Authority in Dublin on Tuesday and his account will likely put pressure on the Government, adding to claims that it has botched its communication strategies surrounding accommodation for asylum seekers.

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Policing Authority chairman Bob Collins said it was “very difficult to understand” why the immediate supply of information to the Garda was “unsatisfactory at the moment” having previously showed signs of improving.

Queries put to the Department of Integration* about why the Garda had not been informed Ross Lake House Hotel had been designated as a centre for about 70 male asylum seekers were not responded to on Tuesday night.

Local protesters had gathered outside the property last Saturday, using a prefabricated cabin to block the main entrance, in opposition to it being used to house foreign men. Late on Saturday night, an arson attack destroyed the disused hotel, five days before the first men were due to arrive to live there.

Mr Harris said evidence from previous similar attacks pointed to “local individuals misguided by misinformation” rather than one group co-ordinating the criminal damage. “It’s very easy to blame a nebulous, ill-defined set of people, whereas, regrettably, prejudice does exist at a local level,” he said of the loose grouping commonly referred to as “the far right”.

He said there was “no evidence to suggest there is a co-ordinated effort or an invisible hand” directing the arson attacks on refugee accommodation in the Republic this year. While it was “easy to blame” a “nebulous” ill-defined group, the reality was the arson attacks witnessed since 2018, and which have increased this year, arose from “prejudice” and “ill-informed comment” at a local level.

He also cautioned against the “simplification” of ascribing protests and crimes to “the far right”, saying that term was now being applied to “disparate” groups which would be better described as “political extremists”. When crimes and other events were ascribed to “the far right” they “take strength” from that, he said.

Meanwhile, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said he made it “very clear” to two Fianna Fáil councillors that comments they made about an arson attack on the hotel in Galway were “completely unacceptable”.

Mr Martin, the Fianna Fáil leader, said he had spoken directly to one of the two Galway county councillors, Noel Thomas, and had endeavoured to contact the other, Seamus Walsh, by phone. He said party headquarters had been in direct contact with Cllr Walsh since then. Cllr Walsh said on Saturday, before the fire that night, that local people had “fears” about the men who were to be housed in the hotel.

Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Harris said it was untrue that crime increased in areas where centres were opened for asylum seekers. Those claims were “deceitful lies based on falsehood” and should be “completely debunked”.

“There is no correlation between an international protection centre and an upsurge in crime, that’s just not what we observe,” he said, adding of the 585 protests in Dublin so far this year, 227 were anti-immigration events, with 52 related arrests.

* This story was amended on Wednesday, December 20th, to reflect that the Department of Integration, not the Department of Justice as initially reported, had not responded to queries.

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