A SOUTH DUBLIN councillor has said there is “complete misinformation” around a fire at an empty Georgian building in south Dublin last night, rubbishing claims that the site was intended for use as accommodation by the government in response to the refugee crisis.

The department of integration, which has responsibility for housing asylum seekers, confirmed to The Journal that they had not been offered accommodation for people seeking international protection at the property, nor had they been investigating options for its use.

Dublin Fire Brigade deployed five fire engines and a turntable ladder to tackle the blaze on Edmondstown Road in Ballyboden yesterday evening.

Sinn Féin councillor Roisin Mannion said that there a number of buildings on the nine-acre site, outlining that they weren’t “in regular use” prior to the 2019 sale.

Firefighting operations are continuing at the #Ballyboden St. Augustine's fire.

We expect to have crews on scene through the night and have received great assistance from partner agencies as we continue to extinguish the fire. pic.twitter.com/iBOxQmrXYJ

— Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) August 20, 2024

She said this means the “buildings weren’t in a fantastic state” and not suitable for accommodation in their current condition.

The building was previously used as a church and a college by an Augustinian order, but had been purchased in 2019 by a developer seeking to build homes on the site.

However, Mannion said the site is currently the subject of a High Court judicial review due to a community group objecting to plans by the owner to build 402 apartments on the site. That case began last December and remains ongoing.

She told RTÉ Radio One that there have been a “number of fires” at the Ballyboden site in recent times.

This mirrored similar false claims on social media made after a fire at a long-vacant hotel in Waterford last Friday night, with local councillors pointing to how the site had been the subject of several fires in recent years.

Within hours of the fire breaking out in Ballyboden last night, dozens of posts were made on the social media platform X, including tweets in French, German, Norwegian, Spanish and Polish, falsely claiming that the site was intended for “hundreds” of asylum seekers.

Many claimed that the fire was caused by arson, which they applauded, while some described the site as being earmarked for invaders or “illegal immigrants” – an inaccurate term for people seeking international protection.

Philip Dwyer, an anti-immigration activist, said the Ballyboden fire was at a “proposed Plantation Centre”. 

Dwyer recently said that bail restrictions on his use of social media, imposed since his arrest during a violent protest near the former Crown Paints building in Coolock, had been lifted.

Before yesterday’s fire there was little connection made on social media between the derelict site and claims that it would be used to house people seeking international protection.

“Is that derelict HSE building at Taylor’s Lane, Ballyboden D16 earmarked for IPAS?” a social media user asked on X on May 20, tagging Yan Mac Oireachtaigh, a local election candidate for the far right National Party who unsuccessfully ran in multiple Dublin constituencies, including in the Ballyboden area.

Mac Oireachtaigh replied that there was an application for a residential development, before adding “I would easily guess that a vast majority of this housing is going to foreigners.”

With reporting by Shane Raymond