Ballinrobe protests: How plans to house 50 asylum seekers were changed

At 2.30am on Saturday, January 6th, about a dozen people were gathered in front of the former JJ Gannon’s Hotel on Ballinrobe’s Main Street in Co Mayo. Earlier on the Friday, it had emerged that on Monday, January 8th, 50 male international protection applicants would be arriving at the former hotel, which closed in 2012. Now a rota was in place, with people present around the clock outside the building.

Among them was local woman Michelle Smith. “At 2.30am, two men showed up trying to access the building. Initially, one said he came from Sligo, and the other one said he came from Kilkenny, and that they were working for the owner. They had key cards. First they said they wanted to get some documentation out for the building, and that changed to one of them moving in as a security man.

“They went to open the door, and the guards spotted them and asked them for ID and they left. Turning up at 2.30am in the morning wasn’t the best idea. It just created more fear,” she says.

[ Ballinrobe protests: ‘We don’t have any facts,’ says demonstrator at Mayo hotel due to house asylum seekers ]

“Those men were sent there by the owner,” says Frank Keane, who is the chair of Ballinrobe Community Development Council. “The owner didn’t want a repeat of what happened in Rosscahill.” On December 16th, fire broke out at the former Ross Lake House Hotel in Rosscahill, near Oughterard, Co Galway, during the night. It had been due to accommodate some 70 asylum seekers. The gardaí suspect arson.

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Of the two men in Ballinrobe, Keane says: “They were not there for any other reason than to protect the building.”

At 2.45pm on Thursday, January 4th, an email with a seven-page document attached dropped into the inboxes of a number of local public representatives. It had been sent from the Department of Integration.

In short, it stated that “50 people in 12 rooms” would be accommodated at Gannon’s Hotel from the following Monday, and that those people would be “adult male international protection applicants”.

The department noted that “a one-year contract will be offered to the provider”. The email stated that the hotel was owned by Tom O’Connor and leased to Sunnyhill Explorer and Banandel Ltd. “The management company has previous experience in the provision of accommodation centres for IPAS [International Protection Accommodation Services].”

Among those to whom the email was sent were local councillors Fine Gael’s Michael Burke and Damien Ryan of Fianna Fáil.

“Last Thursday evening [January 4th], Michael Burke phoned me and said he was after getting an email with statement from the department,” Frank Keane says.

“At 10.30pm that night a few people got together with the councillors to discuss the email. The councillors decided they would release the information the next day. We knew that possibly there would be a local fallout because of this late information sharing from the Government.

“The thing is, the Mayo News reported in September that that hotel was going to be used for Ukrainians families and there didn’t seem to be any problem with that. That was what people were expecting. Now we were being told something different.”

Ballinrobe protests timeline

Thursday, Jan 4th, 2.45pm: An email sent to local public representatives states 50 male asylum seekers are to be housed at the former JJ Gannon’s hotel on Monday

Friday, Jan 5th, 3.30pm: Fine Gael Cllr Michael Burke posts the news on Facebook with the agreement of other councillors

Friday, Jan 5th, 7.45pm: A crowd gathers outside the hotel

Saturday, Jan 6th: Hotel owner texts some townspeople saying the lease should only apply to families, not single males

Sunday, Jan 7th: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on RTÉ says “nobody in a democracy has a right to exercise a veto on who moves into their area or community”. Protesters remain on site

Monday, Jan 8th: Department of Integration confirms families and children will be housed at the hotel

On September 26th, 2023, the Mayo News reported: “Two prominent properties in Ballinrobe could soon become accommodation for refugees, the Mayo News has learned. Mayo County Council has confirmed that discussions are ongoing regarding the use of Gannon’s Hotel on Main Street and O’Connor’s Bar in Glebe Street for Ukrainian refugees. Renovation works have been ongoing for several weeks in Gannon’s Hotel, which has been vacant since closing its doors in 2012.”

On Friday afternoon about 3.30pm, with the agreement of other councillors, Michael Burke posted the news about the imminent arrivals to the town on social media. Word quickly spread through Ballinrobe.

Among the many people who saw the post was Michelle Smith. Quoted elsewhere as Michelle Ford, Smith is her maiden name and the one she asked to be used when interviewed. She made a TikTok, now deleted, saying “We can’t allow this to happen,” as she put it. “I got a lot of messages from people in the town in response.” Responses on social media focused on a perceived lack of communication from the Government, and complaints about a lack of notice; the fact it was not Ukrainian refugees who were due to arrive; and comments about the location of the hotel, which adjoins a creche at the rear.

“We couldn’t have 50 men in such close proximity to the creche,” Smith says, when interviewed at her home on Wednesday 10th.

[ ‘It’s really disappointing’: Ringsend reacts to arson attack that gutted a former Dublin pub ]

Pressed on her reasons for making this comment, she said: ”There was an overall fear that nobody knew where these men were coming from; we didn’t know which country and we had no background. Were they vetted? It was Friday afternoon. Everything was closed. And they were meant to be arriving Monday.”

A Facebook page – Ballinrobe Says No – was then set up: it has since been taken down. Smith posted on the page, suggesting people gather about 7.45pm outside the former JJ Gannon’s Hotel. She maintains there were some 400 or 500 people there, as does at least one other person present. Others dispute this number, such as Frank Keane (who wasn’t present), saying it was 250 at most. The population of Ballinrobe in the last census was 3,148.

Burke, Ryan and fellow councillor Patsy O’Brien (Independent) spoke at the gathering. “Every one of them said their hands were tied. They were adamant they knew nothing about this before the previous day. Michael Burke said if he hadn’t posted the news that afternoon, nobody would have known at all,” Smith says. All this was being streamed live on Facebook, and people started to film this in turn, and post the footage to other social media platforms, such as TikTok and X. Smith was one of the few people who spoke, and she went on to receive what she describes as “hateful” abuse on her own social media platforms.

Some people participating described what was happening as a “protest”. Others insisted it was a “meeting” or “gathering”. Whatever about semantics, the decision was made to establish a rota and maintain an ongoing presence outside the hotel until more information was forthcoming. Some 170 people signed up for the rota. Shortly afterwards, a gazebo, a fire pit, chairs, blankets and bags of turf were dropped off by some local people. At midnight, a woman nobody there appeared to know arrived with hot bacon sandwiches. Two and a half hours later, the two men showed up with key cards, attempting to access the building.

Ballinrobe is a multicultural town. Ballinrobe is a welcoming community but you cannot bounce things into a community with no notice and expect no reaction

—  Cllr Damien Ryan

On Saturday morning, before 10am, the owner of the hotel, Tom O’Connor, texted a number of people in the town. The texts have been seen by The Irish Times. “I have informed the lessee that the lease is being cancelled in relation to IP single males as Department have proposed. I will lease only if it is in relation to families as discussed,” a text stated.

By 4.30pm that day, O’Connor was texting that “The Department are engaging now re families only.”

At that point, Michael Burke went to the people standing outside the hotel, and told them that things had changed, and now families would be arriving. He said he had received this information from a trusted source. Damien Ryan was also there.

“They wanted proof,” Keane says. “They wanted something official, not verbal. But the general consensus was they felt that would be an end to it. People were dispersing. It had quietened down and I went home and next thing the department released a statement...”

In a statement at the weekend the department said it was “continuing to engage with the provider in relation to the premises in Ballinrobe, and is not in a position to comment further”.

As Keane describes it, “Then what we saw on social media was, the Government are telling lies, get back here. You feel helpless in a situation like that, you realised this thing is spiralling out of control. The last-minute information and the shroud of secrecy around it all had caused this, and it was not helped with statements like that either ... The department should think about how they relay information to local people.”

Reflecting on some commentary on social media, he said: “We were called bigots and racists. It’s terrible for any town to be tainted like that. It’s not true.”

A businessman in the town drew attention to a large mural on a street directly perpendicular to the hotel. It featured a heart composed of flowers. Each flower represented a different country: a dog rose for Romania; a sunflower for Ukraine, a lotus for India and so forth. There were 35 countries in all represented. “Ballinrobe in Bloom” had been created in 2020 by artist Tom Meskell. The accompanying plaque noted: “Each flower represents a group of people living in Ballinrobe.” “And people are calling us racist?” the businessman said.

On Sunday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar went on RTÉ’s This Week radio programme. In the course of an interview, he addressed the situation in Ballinrobe, where a presence was still in place outside the hotel. He said he “totally” acknowledged that people locally had concerns and fears.

He went on to say: “I also need to be very clear. Nobody in a free society, nobody in a democracy has a right to exercise a veto on who moves into their area or community. That doesn’t just apply to international protection.”

Varadkar said comments made by local Fine Gael councillor Michael Burke about the situation did not reflect Government policy. “I have said back to him very clearly the situation we are now facing is that the alternative to providing accommodation centres is people on the streets.”

“When Leo said that bit about how the locals have no veto on who lives among them, that was kind of in their faces. I can only speculate as to how the protesters felt about that,” said Frank Keane.

“I suppose the biggest backlash and biggest kick in the teeth to us was the interview that Leo Varadkar did on Sunday,” Smith said.

Fianna Fáil councillor Damien Ryan said of Varadkar’s comments: “I can’t speak on behalf of the Fine Gael leader, as he is not my leader. However, we are in a democracy and there has to be an opportunity for a community to raise questions. I hope the Government is going to take on board what has happened here, and work on advance information strategies going forward.”

[ By caving in to protests about asylum seekers, the Government has torched its own principles ]

How does Ryan respond to criticisms of Ballinrobe on social media? “Ballinrobe is a multicultural town. Ballinrobe is a welcoming community but you cannot bounce things into a community with no notice and expect no reaction. The people who were contacting me were concerned that it was all happening so quickly. Their main concern was about the fact they were all males, and the hotel’s proximity to child care facilities at the creche.”

People remained on site throughout Sunday. On Monday, the department announced that families and children would now be housed at the former JJ Gannon’s Hotel. They are due to start arriving imminently.

Fine Gael councillor Michael Burke did not respond to a request for further comment. In a text message, he wrote: “I don’t wish to add anything to my statement on Saturday, as per confirmation from the owner that he would not be proceeding with proposal by email from Department last Thursday, as was confirmed yesterday morning [January 8th] by Department.”

The Irish Times made several attempts to contact the owner and management of the former JJ Gannon’s Hotel, but no spokesperson was made available.

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