Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald has accused the Government of failing to consult residents in Coolock over the proposed siting of an international protection centre in the area.
Ms McDonald has written to Taoiseach Simon Harris stating there had been no engagement with the community in Coolock “despite repeated claims to the contrary”. She has offered to work with him to find a solution to the recent stand-off.
Plans by the Government to house an unspecified number of asylum seekers in the old Crown Paints factory in Coolock have led to violent scenes and protests over the last week, with several gardaí injured on Friday night, and two fires started.
“The community was given no opportunity to ask questions, to raise concerns or to get clarity and assurances. This failure to engage is arrogant and disrespectful to a community that has been neglected and forgotten for generations,” she wrote.
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“It has driven anger and created a vacuum in which fear and misinformation have thrived. It is now urgent that this is fixed. Community engagement is not about vetoes. It’s about respect, resources and support.”
[ ‘At the heart of this is poverty’: How Coolock’s pressure-cooker finally explodedOpens in new window ]
She went on to state that community, youth, education and sport facilities in the area had been “starved of funding” and locals had been “strung along” with false promises by successive governments.
The letter follow meetings she had with community groups in Coolock, where, she claimed, “anger and frustration felt across the community was articulated time and again”.
She urged the Government to start a process of engagement with the community in Coolock through interlocutors, though she didn’t state who those mediators might be.
“The community in Coolock will, in my opinion, respond positively and constructively to genuine dialogue and engagement. This is a decent, proud community who must be heard.”
The Sinn Féin leader admitted last week that the party had got the issue of immigration wrong following a disastrous performance in the local elections where it got just 11.8 per cent of the vote.
Speaking after last Saturday’s Ard Comhairle meeting, Ms McDonald said the concerns of many people within working-class communities about immigration had not been taken seriously.
It was wrong to dismiss their concerns as being “sidelined or branded. We need to move away from that.
“We represent lots of communities that really struggle, that have struggled inter-generationally with lack of opportunities and very poor service provision. That’s a reality.
“We need to have a system that is resolutely anti-racist and recognises everybody’s right to be treated with dignity and fairness, that also makes a demand that the immigration system works efficiently and fairly.”
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