Athlone councillors seek to halt work on 1,000-person refugee accommodation facility

Local councillors in Athlone today (Monday) took a first step in seeking to halt work on a new temporary accommodation facility for up to 1,000 male asylum seekers in the Lissywollen area of the town.

Work on developing the new facility, on part of the site of the existing asylum seeker accommodation centre in Lissywollen, started last week.

However the decision to accommodate 1,000 asylum seekers on one site on the outskirts of Athlone was described as "disgraceful" by the town's Mayor, Fianna Fáil's Cllr Frankie Keena, who said local public representatives had been by "blindsided" by it.

During a meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District this afternoon, Cllr Keena said the local councillors were now "proposing our own course of action to address this particular situation".

The action outlined at the meeting would seek to use a legal provision, under the Local Government Reform Act 2014, to halt work on the development of the new accommodation.

The councillors' move was explained by Independent Ireland representative Paul Hogan, who said the Ministerial order directing work on the temporary accommodation in Athlone relied on Section 181 of the Planning and Development Act, 2000, which effectively allows the Minister to sidestep the usual planning process for certain projects.

However, Cllr Hogan argued that this section does not apply to certain other pieces of legislation, specifically local councillors' reserved function number 39, as outlined under under the Local Government Reform Act 2014.

This reserved function allows the council to make an order "prohibiting the erection or retention of temporary dwellings".

"We, as a group of councillors today, are proposing that we move our reserved function, and that we make an order prohibiting the erection of the temporary dwellings as it is our view that their erection is prejudicial to the amenities of the locality and interferes unreasonably with that area," said Cllr Hogan.

"We also move that this order applies to specified land under which construction is currently taking place."

The action proposed by Cllr Hogan was seconded by Cllr Keena and unanimously supported by the other district representatives.

Depending on the next steps in the process, the issue could potentially end up being decided in court.

A protest gathering in relation to the asylum seeker accommodation facility, which was attended by approximately 50 people, took place outside Athlone Civic Centre ahead of this afternoon's monthly meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District.

* For more on this story, see this Wednesday's Westmeath Independent