Govt 'failure' for towns sheltering refugees 'feeds anti-migrant narrative', say locals

Supports have been sought for GP services in several counties.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS been accused of failing to follow through on promises to provide additional services to some areas that have taken in asylum seekers, including in towns that have received people fleeing war over six years ago.

Roscommon-Galway TD Claire Kerrane and a community group in Co Donegal said the failure to provide services has made it difficult to provide services appropriately, with the pleas for help “falling on deaf ears” as a result.

The Sinn Féin deputy cited Ballaghaderreen in her constituency which has provided shelter to hundreds of people in recent years but which has not received anywhere close to the appropriate level of support needed.

One community group in Donegal outlined the difficulties in supporting asylum seekers who they said have been housed with no support from the nearest village.

The government has been attempting to source accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees but has faced resistance in several areas, amid a wider national effort by an anti-immigration movement to prevent the housing of people. Arson attacks have escalated in recent months on properties earmarked for accommodating asylum seekers and refugees.

In Ballaghderreen, Co Roscommon, which was among the first Irish communities to take in Syrian refugees in 2017, Kerrane said that promised supports to health services had not materialised.

Kerane said it looks like the “HSE isn’t at the table” when it comes to providing services to help manage new arrivals, including in the town of Boyle.

“It’s a failure of the government to properly manage and coordinate Ireland’s response to the crisis,” Kerrane said.

She added that different ministers have regularly “wrongly claimed” to her that additional services and GPs have been provided to areas, including her own.

At present, people receiving temporary protection in Ireland, such as Ukrainians, and international protection applicants (asylum seekers from other countries) are assigned to a GP if they have been refused by three practices who were not in a position to take them on as patients.

While there had been some attempts to make certain parts of a GP practice less bureaucratic, by centralising interpretation services so that invoices are managed by the HSE rather than the practice, other supports have yet to arrive.

Two medical sources said that while some attempts have been made to improve services, the sector still lacks support in terms of general practitioner nurses to help staff GP offices.

Another example of how State agencies do not coordinate their services for asylum seekers includes the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive. While it manages accommodation for homeless people in the Dublin region, it refuses to allow its services to be used for asylum seekers even when they’re sleeping on the street.

Kerrane pointed to an exchange on the floor of the Dáil recently when the Tánaiste Micheál Martin had told her that additional services had been provided.

She said she had raised additional resources in the Dáil with the members of Cabinet on a total of nine occasions and has written to Ministers several times on the matter also.

In a follow up to a question asked last November, Martin told Kerrane that “very significant” health resources had been allocated and that a list outlining the supports would be shared with the TD.

Martin said at the time: “Prior to any of this, we had challenges with rural primary care and the sufficiency of numbers of GPs in certain rural locations. That has always been there, but notwithstanding that, we are trying to make improvements.”

Kerrane said she is still waiting on the list for resources.

In Co Donegal, one community group said the extent of additional supports for asylum seekers has been laid bare by recent accommodations.

A coordinator of the group, which asked for anonymity due to safety concerns for the men receiving protection, said that more than 30 people have been housed in a former home.

“This is a house that is in the middle of nowhere, away from the nearest village, on a very busy road with no footpath to their house. There is nothing for the men to do here other than watch television and sit around – they were given three bikes for the 30+ of them but even then, they’ve had flat wheels and haven’t been able to use them.

“They came here with clothes unsuitable for the weather because that’s all they had. It was through locals that they got shoes and winter boots but it’s all people in the community donating their old clothes.”

The woman said locals were given “no information” as to what their status as international protection applicants meant.

She said there is a danger of “feeding a narrative” used by anti-immigration activists.

“I’m a woman, I don’t need protection from these men, we do need to get to know them.

“When these men were moved in, we didn’t know what an asylum seeker is versus a refugee. It turned out these men are not getting free transport, whereas Ukrainian refugees do get free transport.

“Thankfully I’ve been able to contact with so many local people because we all share the same common view that these men who arrived needed help and support to help them settle in, which was at a point when anti-immigration sentiment was really intense.”

She added: “There’s been no support, nothing from the government, nothing that would help better integrate these men into the community. It just seems like it’s fallen on deaf ears.”