Official against pro-rata granting of council houses for refugees

The mayor of Ennis in Co Clare said yesterday there is "no way in the world" that new council housing should be provided on a pro-rata basis to the town's refugees and asylum seekers.

Cllr Neylon (Ind) made his comment after new figures showed that 40 per cent of applicants on the council's housing list are refugees and asylum seekers.

In 2003, 148 refugees and asylum seekers were on the 590-strong list. This number has almost doubled, to 282 out of 680 on the current list.

Asked should the refugees and asylum seekers be allocated housing on a pro-rata basis, Cllr Neylon said: "There is no way in the world that that should happen. I would be totally against that. That would be very unfair to people born and reared in this town who are on the housing list," he said.

"There is no hint of racism in what I say. I welcome all the refugees and asylum seekers to Ennis and I have no problem with them, but I do have a problem when it comes to housing stock if the Government isn't prepared to provide additional funding to build the extra homes."

Separate figures provided by the council show that houses are not being allocated to refugees on a proportional basis.

Last year, the council allocated just four homes to non-nationals out of 46 allocated - 8 per cent of the total. In a new council development of 48 homes at Roslevan, nine homes were allocated to non-nationals. Cllr Neylon said that the council was playing catch-up in trying to deal with the growing housing list.

"The list is 680 at the moment and will be 1,000 soon enough. There is no way of solving it with the current level of providing housing. We are going to shortly provide 48 homes in Roslevan but it maybe another three years before the council opens another housing development and the list will continue to grow."

Nigerian-born councillor Dr Taiwoo Matthew said the council was not meeting its targets in providing housing. He added, however: "The council is doing as much as it can with the resources available. We work as a team. The council provided 46 homes last year, but I wish that it could have provided 500 new homes if it was able to get the funding."