Micheal Ring criticises how communities are consulted on asylum seeker accommodation
Minister Micheal Ring has criticised his own Government's policy on how communities are consulted on asylum seeker accommodation.
Calling for a national debate on the issue, the Mayo TD hit out at recent plans to accommodate 13 vulnerable women in a hotel on Achill Island claiming locals were given false facts and were not fully informed.
"What happened in Achill was wrong because they were getting misinformation, they weren't getting the whole truth.
"I was angry that I wasn't told and people were ringing me up, nobody had the facts.
"Nobody knew who was coming, you are saying 13 women, when I got the first message it was 70 males and nobody knew what was actually happening," he said.
The Department of Justice has since postponed the arrival of the women on Achill after public protests were mounted outside the building which had been earmarked for emergency short-term accommodation.
Speaking in Waterford, Mr Ring said the Department of Justice would now set up a special interdepartmental committee to talk with local communities in the future.
Mr Ring said there is now a need for a "national debate" on the issue.
"The only thing I was giving out about is that you need to talk to people and I think the time has come now where we need to have a national debate in relation to asylum seekers in relation to immigration.
"We want to support these people, we want to help these people but we have to talk to communities, we have to work with communities and we have to tell communities what is happening so they are not reading it on the internet and getting misinformation and now that is going to be corrected by the Department of Justice."
Asked what side of the debate he would be on, the Minister for Rural Affairs said: "I am on every side in this debate, I think we have to talk to people and I also think we have to help ans support people who come into this country."
In a statement confirming the decision to postpone bringing the 13 women seeking international protection to Achill, the Department of Justice last week said: "An ongoing protest remains in place outside the hotel, so the Department has regrettably decided that, at the moment, to ask the women to move there would not be in their best interests, as they may be vulnerable while awaiting decisions on their protection applications”.
