Residents of a County Kildare village say they are fearful of the pressure that will be placed on stretched services if a former sporting venue is transformed into an accommodation centre.
A public meeting, to be chaired by the Mayor of Kildare and local councillor Fintan Brett was arranged for Friday evening at the local Kill GAA club premises amid uncertainty on the part of the organisers as to what precisely was being planned for the former Kill Equestrian Centre.
The centre has been vacant since it ceased operations over a decade ago and it was the subject of a failed planning application to demolish the buildings there in 2018. Kildare County Council said this was a likely prelude to an application for residential development which would go against the county development plan.
Fintan Brett says that it’s not a suitable site. “It’s an agricultural barn, without lights, without ventilation, and as far as I know there’s no sewerage on the site, and it’s a mile outside the village.”
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The centre is privately owned but cllr Brett says the site should not be used and is not suitable “for human beings”.
Cllr Brett said that the community would likely welcome Ukrainian refugees but he also pointed out that Scoil Bhride, the local primary school is full to capacity. He also said that local GPs are not taking on any new patients.
Neither Kill, nor the neighbouring smaller village of Johnstown, has a community hall.
Cllr Brett said that up to now efforts had been made to accommodate Ukrainians in hotels, at least initially, and he criticised the idea that some 348 refugees will live in a place that apparently has no sewerage system, no lights and no ventilation.
“The real concern I have is that the county council with all its experience in housing, planning, design and engineering voiced utter opposition to this because it’s not suitable to put human beings into.”
He said KCC offered at least seven sites to the International Protection Accommodation Services, which is responsible for the provision of accommodation and related services to people in the asylum process and the Kill site was not one of them.
In a statement KCC said responsibility for the provision of accommodation lies with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.
The department subsequently said discussions “are ongoing at this stage between the Department and the provider about the potential use of the Kill Equestrian Centre to house Ukrainian Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection, which, should the contract be agreed, will be comprised of families (mothers, fathers and children) and single females.
“The vast majority of those seeking refuge from Ukraine are in this category and therefore that is where the greatest accommodation need arises.”