Councillors' motion to discuss IPAS centre in Tipperary with Minister receives support

A motion presented to Tipperary County Council’s June meeting will be moving forward after many councillors were in support of the motion.

Cllr Roger Kennedy and Cllr Liam Browne both decided to combine their separate motions regarding the issue as they were almost identical.

The Motion sought to seek a deputation with Minister Jim O’Callaghan and relevant officials of th eDepartment of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, to discuss the awarding of the Dundrum IPAS contract, to provide more services to the local community there, to seek an assurance that any future interim IPAS accommodation in the county that due regard is had to the population number of the receiving community and the services available and that a Community Risk assessment is required to be carried and submitted by the owner of any building seeking to accommodate IP clients in an area.

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The motion also asked for a risk assessment to include prior consultations to take place with the local community and any agreements reached and that meeting includes the Cathaoirleach of the Council and the Cathaoirleach/Mayor of the Borough/Municipal Districts.

“The situation is that Dundrum House has housed Ukrainians for the last three years and now it will be an IPAS centre.”

Cllr Kennedy said that many of the Ukrainians living there are in ‘gainful employment’ and fit in well with the community.

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Speaking about the recent decision by the department to house 277 new international protection applicants in the hotel, Cllr Kennedy said “It’s having a huge impact, there’s no way that this can be a long-term project. There’s no way it can be sustained long-term. The facilities aren’t there in any of the services, whether it’s education, health, business, anything. We’re looking for a meeting with the Minister to discuss these issues.”

Cllr Liam Browne, said that it was blatantly obvious that there was many planning issues around where the IPAS intend to be accommodated in Dundrum House and I’ll be leaving this meeting to go and talk to the planning department, and ask why enforcement procedures have not been done already, on foot of letter sent out four or six weeks ago to the owners of Dundrum House in which Tipperary County Council clearly told them that they were in breach of planning regulations.

Cllr Browne welcomed the recent news that the Community Recognition Fund gave almost €100,000 to two GAA clubs, which they very much deserve, but without giving money towards better services he said, it creates division in these communities, said Cllr Browne.

“We want people in the future to sit down and look at an area like Dundrum and realise you’ll have to put in a lot more services also.”

Cllr Mary Hanna fully supported the motion but said that looking for a meeting with the Minister “gives me very little hope.”

She explained that replies from the Minister to the Dundrum Heritage Group recently were very disappointing. Michael Murphy TD received a reply from Minister O’Callaghan, which Cllr Mary Hannah described saying: “They are throwing everything back on the local authority.”

Chief Executive Officer of Tipperary County Council Sinead Carr responded to the motion by saying that she has no issue in supporting the councillors motion and provide whatever information they can in terms of the preparation of the case.

However she warned that “there will be no facility for a whole cohort of Councillors to go up to pass that deputation. I think the proposal here is that it be the Cathaoirleach and the relevant representatives of each of the districts is reasonable.

"I know there was a proposal that one of the nominators would also attend and I suppose that that would be fine, but for any more than that, to be quite honest with you, you're at nothing going up there it has to be done in a managed manner."