An information vacuum has been identified by some as the spark that ignited the fire in which a disused pub and guest house in Ringsend was burned down on New Year’s Eve.
The logic of this argument is that if local politicians had been given the information the facility was to be used for homeless accommodation, and not for international protection applicants, they would have been in a position to reassure locals, thereby averting the potential of an arson attack.
A Garda investigation into the arson attack on the old Shipwright pub is ongoing and no suspect, local or otherwise, or motive has yet been identified.
Fine Gael councillor Danny Byrne who raised the lack of communication from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) about its plans for the pub on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland said he believed “the outcome would have been very different if it had been clearly communicated from the beginning that this building was to be used for homeless families”.
This would have allowed councillors to counteract misinformation about “unvetted” asylum seekers by individuals “travelling the country stoking up hate”.
He said afterward, the failure of the DRHE to put out a statement in relation to the planned use of the buildings showed a lack of respect for councillors and was “grossly unprofessional”. He said he expected an apology from the DRHE for “inferring that local councillors had been contacted”. In relation to the arson attack he said: “The results speak for themselves. Their communications policy resulted in this.”
Mary Hayes, DRHE director, said she had not issued any “formal” notice to councillors in relation to the use of the building for homeless accommodation and it would not be “normal” practice to do so.
“Normally if we’re taking something that was used as a B&B and we are using it for homeless families we don’t advertise the fact, because it’s the same use. We don’t want to stigmatise people and point out that these are homeless families. They’re the same families that are trying to get their kids to school, get to work, and all the rest of it, so we’ve never really gone down that road before.”
However, she said if a building, not previously used for accommodation was to be converted for housing, this would require planning changes, and so would be publicly identified as being intended for homeless use.
While she did not issue a formal report to councillors, Ms Hayes said a number of councillors contacted her before Christmas asking about the building and she confirmed its planned use for homeless families.
She said the council may have to review its practices due to how the “landscape has changed” following recent protests. “The difficulty for me is there’s a trade-off in the sense that you’re marking out families and children,” she said.
The greater concern she said was that the potential for housing homeless families in the Ringsend area was now dramatically reduced. “We have people who are waiting for accommodation in that area and I have no homeless services around there,” she said.
Local Green Party councillor Hazel Chu, who chairs the council’s homeless subcommittee, said she was one of the councillors who had contacted Ms Hayes after seeing online claims by far-right groups that the facility was to be used for asylum seekers. However, she said she is uneasy about the idea communities need to be informed about the use of buildings.
“The thought that automatically comes into my head is, is it just information people want or do they want consultation? Because consultation is very different. When you have new neighbours moving in, no one consults you on whether they can move in or not.”
It also should not matter who is being accommodated, she said. “We can’t have it descend into people saying ‘we’re allowing this group of people, but we’re not allowing that group of people’.”
Local Labour councillor Kevin Donoghue said he had not contacted the DRHE in relation to the use of the building, but also agreed it was not appropriate to make a distinction between different groups needing support.
“We are quite a wealthy society in general and we have an absolute responsibility to do as much as we can for the people that need us and I don’t care where they’re from and I don’t think that other people should either.”
He said he had not received representations from local people concerned about who was going to be accommodated in the building. “I think we should be very careful about listening to people who say, ‘well he’s from one side of the threshold and she’s from the other, and one is deserving and the other is not’. If we do this we’re going find out very quickly the list of people who are deserving of support gets shorter and shorter.”
Independent councillor Mannix Flynn, however, believes a communication strategy could avert problems and hostility in the community.
“To be informed as a local representative is really paramount. I am not a nosy parker and I don’t think the people of Ringsend are nosy parkers but this activity of ‘ghosting’ people in the middle of the night is inevitably going to cause problems.”
Those who had burned down the building were “ignorant criminal thugs” Mr Flynn said, but the DRHE was “fanning those flames by not being transparent”. He added that building owners who may have been considering making their properties available for homeless accommodation may be less likely to do so in the future.
Sinn Féin councillor Daniel Céitinn said he had asked the DRHE its plans for the building, but thought it would be preferable if councillors were informed in advance.
“I don’t think anyone should have a veto over who lives beside them, but I think people should have the right to know. But when councillors aren’t given information for them to be able to inform communities, it looks like we’re not doing our jobs.”
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