Picket on site for asylum-seekers in Kilkenny

Residents yesterday began picketing a site in Kilkenny city on which accommodation is to be built for up to 250 asylum-seekers.

The pickets followed a hastily-arranged public meeting on Monday night, organised after machinery was moved on to the site to begin preparations for building.

The site, at Leggettsrath on the Dublin Road, was acquired recently by the Office of Public Works for the Department of Justice's Reception and Integration Agency, which is responsible for meeting the accommodation needs of asylum-seekers.

The residents say they are not objecting to asylum-seekers but are angry that there was no consultation about such a large-scale development in their area.

Planning permission for the complex, which is classed as emergency accommodation, was not required. Residents say they first heard of the development through rumours circulating last week.

Their stance is supported by a number of public representatives, including Fine Gael TD Mr Phil Hogan, who said Kilkenny County Council only learned of the project in the last 10 days.

It was wrong, he said, "to foist any large number of people on a community without any planning or any consultation and without the back-up that's required to support that group of people".

Mr Mike O'Brien, the chairman of a residents' committee set up at Monday night's meeting, said three courses of action had been agreed: to picket the entrances to the site, to seek an injunction in the courts to stop the development until there had been "proper discussions", and to organise a city- and county-wide petition.

He had lived in the area since 1969, he said. "We are quiet people. We are ordinary, everyday people who go about our business and our lives in a quiet way, but we are completely gobsmacked by this situation which is being rammed down our throats."

The protest, he said, was not about race or colour or anything but the manner in which the development was being forced through "with a complete and utter lack of consultation".

The Department of Justice said the development would be similar to others in Dublin, Cork and Clare. It would cater, in the main, for families and would incorporate dining, communal, recreational, health and welfare facilities, as well as appropriate landscaping works.

"It is anticipated that the centre should come on stream at the end of this year or early next year. Following its completion, placements to the centre will be made on a phased basis over a number of months."

The large crowd at Monday's meeting included residents from the Shandon Park, Altamont Park, Assumption Place, O'Loughlin Road, Hebron Road and Leggettsrath areas of the city. The site is opposite the South Eastern Health Board headquarters.

Mr Hogan is to raise the matter in the Dáil today by way of a question to the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue.

There are currently about 100 asylum-seekers in Kilkenny city.