Residents of the direct provision centre in Ballyhaunis say they fear being moved to a hotel in Ballina which has been the focus of local protests over its conversion into an international protection accommodation service (IPAS) centre.
Rispa Mwangi, a Kenyan national living seven years in the Ballyhaunis centre, said she is afraid of protests at the Ballina hotel, formerly the Twin Trees. “At the entrance to the hotel there are placards everywhere saying things like ‘Ballina Says No’.
Ms Mwangi is one of twenty mothers, all with refugee status or permission to remain in Ireland – who have been given notice to quit the international protection accommodation centre in Ballyhaunis.
They will be moved to the Twin Trees hotel in Ballina if they have not found alternative accommodation by July 10, according to Owodunni Ola Mustapha (who also uses the moniker Oluwaseun Ola Sabigurl on social media), another member of the group and a mother of three. Ms Mustapha said she has travelled to Ballina to view the hotel and said she was concerned about an unwelcoming atmosphere there.
All of the group received letters from IPAS in February to find their own accommodation by July 5. In the letters IPAS explained that since the group has received refugee status -with full rights to social welfare – they are no longer entitled to accommodation at the Ballyhaunis centre, which is located in the town’s old Mercy convent.
Speaking during a protest organised by the group outside the old convent in Ballyhaunis on Saturday July 6, Ms Mwangi also said she was worried about finding a doctor in Ballina as well as school places for her children. “I am the mother of a one-month-old baby, also my second child has respiratory issues and having a GP is very important, we have a GP in Ballyhaunis and my children are in school here,” she explained. Ms Mwangi also said she had looked online for school spaces in Ballina and “there are none.”
The protestors unveiled a banner at the gate to the centre which read ‘Housing for All’. Others carried placards, one of which read ‘Please give us more time, and our children.’ Another, carried by a Zimbabwean national, read: ‘Asking for more time!! House search hasn’t been successful considering housing crisis in the country!’
A Georgian national who has lived at the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) for eight years said she has been waiting for six weeks to get approval for housing assistance payments (HAP). “Then yesterday they asked me for two more documents,” she explained.
Residents at the IPAS centre are not charged rent. Many have permission to work while they wait for a decision on their applications for asylum. Ms Mwangi and Ms Mustapha -who works as a carer – both explained they were willing to pay rent to remain at the centre.
Colm Cafferky, organizer of the Community Action Tenants Union, told the protest that his group stands with the IPAS centre residents and that “no one should be evicted in a housing crisis.”
A representative of People Before Profit in Castlebar, Joe Daly called on the local people of Ballyhaunis to help the residents oppose their eviction from the Ballyhaunis IPAS centre.
A South Asian asylum seeker, waiting on a decision on her asylum application, told the Western People that she felt those who had received their papers should be asked to leave the centre to make way for asylum seekers without papers. “I think they’re lucky to have gotten their papers, it’s reasonable to expect that they now leave the IPAS centre.”
This story appeared as the lead story in the July 9, 2024 edition of the Western People.
