Cork County Council seeking outline of asylum seeker accommodation policy
Fianna Fáil councillor Deirdre O'Brien raised a question about the policies relating to accommodation for international protection applications at a recent Cork County Council meeting.
Councillors intervened to amend a motion calling on the Government to outline its policy on sourcing accommodation centres for international protection applicants to remove references to "discontentment and division" and "a feeling of unfair burden of unknown" during a recent meeting of Cork County Council.
Fianna Fáil councillor Deirdre O’Brien raised a question about the policies relating to accommodation for international protection applications of the coalition Government when she proposed her motion.
However, following the intervention of her party colleague, councillor Gearóid Murphy, it was agreed to amend the motion to remove the references to ‘division’ and ‘discontent’ and the ‘unfair burden’ and to confine the motion to seeking an outline of the Government policy and which also sought an explanation of the process relating to the issuing of a fire safety certificate.
Ms O’Brien said she had seen anxiety levels rising in communities because of what she described as the "fast changes" that people are witnessing around them "without any knowledge or input".
The Fianna Fáil councillor accused the Government of a lack of communication and said it hadn’t helped the introduction of international protection applicants.
“The accommodating of the International Protection seekers seems to vary and has a lot of unexplained regulations around it," she said.
Ms O’Brien said that already existing pressures would be exacerbated in many towns as there was a "need for extra schools, teachers, medical care, Gardaí and support for an ageing population".
In Mr Murphy’s contribution, he said: “We can’t lose sight of the fact that there are people coming from desperate, unfathomable situations of famine, war and desperation – and we have an obligation which has long been a settled principle under international law to help those in need.”
Mr Murphy said that it was important to put the issue into proportion.
“In most cases it will involve something in the order of 50 or 100 refugees arriving into a town,” he said. "I would point out that in the case of most of our towns, there is already land zoned for development over the next 4 or 5 years for far more than 50 or 100 people.
“So while I would acknowledge that there is an impact from an increase in population, if an increase of this volume were unsustainable, then there is no way that we would have zoned any land for housing development in any of the towns in question in our last County Development Plan.”
Social Democrats councillor Liam Quaide said that he agreed with the demand for a policy on asylum seeker accommodation but said he took issue with the references in the motion to "communities being overburdened".
The council’s interim chief executive Valerie O’Sullivan said that the authority had no role in identifying accommodation for international protection seekers. In response to queries relating to the provision of fire safety certificates for buildings identified for accommodation for international protection applicants, Ms O’Sullivan said there was no difference in the process for the provision of such certificates for international protection accommodation.
She asserted that inspections were carried out and, if the building met the standards set out, it was issued with a certificate and if it didn’t meet the standards, no certificate was issued.
County Mayor, Cllr Frank O’Flynn, was anxious to ensure that there would be an agreed motion as a result of a wide ranging debate with contributions from many councillors and he succeeded as a motion calling for an outline of the Government policy on sourcing accommodation for international protection applicants was adopted.
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