A group of asylum-seekers from the Congo last night refused to be relocated from Dublin to Donegal.
The party of 14, including six children, spent the night in emergency accommodation having returned to the capital from Donegal town were they had been allocated rooms at a hotel. They claimed the hotel was overcrowded.
At a meeting with officials from the department's Central Directorate of Asylum Seekers, the asylum-seekers said they were unwilling to move outside the capital. A department spokesman said negotiations between the two sides would continue until a compromise was reached but added that asylum-seekers would not be allowed "pick and choose where and when they are housed".