Incidents of intimidation and violence aimed at migrants in Dublin over the weekend, and a blockade of an accommodation centre in Co Clare yesterday, are intolerable and unacceptable. These episodes come amid reports of over 500 immigrants forced to sleep on the streets of Dublin because dedicated accommodation spaces have dried up. Now the Government is desperately scrambling to open four new accommodation centres, mostly refurbished office buildings, in Dublin and Clare within the next fortnight.
The State has taken in some 60,000 Ukrainian refugees since last February and is trying to accommodate a further 20,000 asylum seekers from other countries. The generosity of that open-door welcome was strongly supported by the public – and still is – but as the strain on, and competition for, scarce resources became more evident, a pushback was inevitable. It has been played on by small numbers of far-right agitators, unscrupulously exploiting local concerns.
The State is at a difficult moment in its response. As this newspaper has reported, civil servants in the Department of Integration have been warning Ministers of a “growing reluctance” from some local authorities and communities to take more Ukrainian refugees into their localities “due to pressure on services” in areas where schools or local doctors were already under strain. In its briefing documents the department warns that huge demands to source accommodation are also limiting its “oversight” of the quality of the housing and affecting its ability to engage with local communities before moving asylum seekers and refugees into an area. The briefing also warned there is a “high risk” that rooms leased in the hospitality sector may be lost as hotels, bed and breakfasts and other private providers “pivot back to tourism”.
The answer, however, is not to retreat from commitments to housing refugees, but urgently to step up assistance to those services which are under pressure, and precisely to do more to engage with those local communities ahead of the arrival of refugees. Engagement does not have to mean giving communities a veto, but it does mean listening to concerns, explaining how difficult decisions are made, and reassuring about the provision of the extra resources that are needed.
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Within the political system there are echoes of those local concerns. For the time being, mostly at a low level or oblique. Politicians, as ever, are understandably anxious to stay in touch with voters, to reflect local moods, even local NIMBYism, and are rightly reluctant, for the most part, to repeat the argument that resources directed at refugees are directed away from health, education or other worthy causes. It does not need to be one or the other. This is a rich country whose tax coffers are overflowing. It must not shirk its responsibility.