WATCH: Athlone councillors announce High Court action over refugee centre

Whatever your view of the plan to set up temporary accommodation for 1,000 male asylum seekers in Athlone, the announcement today (Thursday) by five local councillors of their independent High Court effort to try to stop it was a remarkable and unprecedented moment.

Six months ago, the same councillors went to the people in search of votes at the local elections.

They are now asking for public support of a different kind; Go Fund Me donations to help pay the legal costs of trying to block the planned accommodation currently being set up by Government in Lissywollen.

At the time of writing this evening the Go Fund Me page, which has a target of €100,000, had generated more than €8,000 from over 200 individual donations in just five hours.

Here is Cllr Aengus O'Rourke reading a prepared statement on behalf of himself, Cllr John Dolan, Cllr Frankie Keena, Cllr Kevin 'Boxer' Moran and Cllr Paul Hogan during this afternoon's press briefing in the Shamrock Lodge Hotel:

The High Court challenge, on environmental grounds, has parallels with a legal action taken by local residents over plans to accommodate up to 1,000 international protection applicants at a site in Thornton Hall in north county Dublin.

The Athlone councillors have engaged the services of PB Cunningham & Company solicitors, in Dublin, who also acted on behalf of the local residents at Thornton Hall.

"It's fair to say that (PB Cunningham & Co) have been successful already in an action, similar to this, in terms of the Thornton Hall development," stated Cllr O'Rourke.

Following the legal challenge over Thornton Hall, Minister O'Gorman revoked his order providing for that development, but his Department has said a new order for this site will be "developed in the coming weeks".

On the projected timeframe for the Athlone legal action, Cllr O'Rourke said it was difficult to know.

He anticipated that any movement of new residents onto the site in Lissywollen was "some time off yet," and that the legal case should come before the High Court within a "short" number of days.

Two of the councillors taking the legal action are Fianna Fáil representatives, one is a Fine Gael councillor, one is an Independent, and one represents the new Independent Ireland party.

But Cllr O'Rourke said the action was being taken on behalf of "citizens of Athlone... we are not here as individuals contesting an election, we're not here branded by our political party, we're here for the good of the town."

When asked about the remarkable situation in which the councillors now find themselves - of looking for donations from the public to try to stop a highly controversial Government development - Cllr Dolan replied: "It sad that we felt we had to do this. But we had to do this.

"We've had lots of conversations behind closed doors on this, and we've been working for a long time on it, together. We've been united in our thinking on this. We feel that this is the right course of action.

"We have all been elected recently to the council and we feel that we wouldn't be representing the people that elected us if we didn't take this course of action."

When asked if the councillors were confident there would be widespread support for their action, Cllr Dolan said: "I would imagine so, yes. I haven't met anyone that has had an opposite opinion."

Athlone Mayor Frankie Keena, who sent his apologies that he was unable to attend today's press briefing, issued a statement in which he said the town had been patient, accommodating and respectful in relation to new people arriving from other countries.

"It is has been well documented that both I as Mayor, and my colleagues in the Municipal District of Athlone Moate, were never consulted, completely dismissed and ignored, by Minister Roderic O’Gorman by his action to sign a Ministerial Order to provide tented accommodation in Athlone to cater for 1000 male IPAS (International Protection Accommodation Service) persons."

The local councillors had previously been given legal advice by Westmeath County Council's legal representatives not to proceed with a legal challenge, but Cllr Keena explained that the councillors' own independent legal team would "challenge the legality, on environmental grounds, of the Minister’s action to develop this site as a tented IPAS centre."

"We have instructed our legal team to apply for an interlocutory injunctive relief as part of the intended judicial review action," he added.

"I feel that the disregard that this Minister has shown to the environment with the development of this site is reckless."