A COMMUNITY GROUP has formed in Drimnagh in response to protests outside a local school that was used to provide emergency accommodation for refugees over the Christmas period.
Community activists, youth workers, political representatives and people living in the area launched Drimnagh For All as an initiative “against the hate and division that has been sown in our community in the last week”.
The group is made up of a few dozen locals and said it is resolved to “support inclusion and solidarity with minorities who come here temporarily, or to live in this area”.
The protests were held after a number of posts on social media falsely claimed that Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School was still being used to accommodate refugees, and that children might be unable to return to the school after the Christmas break.
The Journal factchecked these claims and found them to be false. A small group of refugees stayed at the school from 23 December to 3 January and the school reopened as planned on 5 January.
Drimnagh For All is planning to hold a series of events in the near future “to push back against the hate and division that has been deliberately stoked up”.
Local People Before Profit councillor Hazel De Nortúin, who is involved in the group, told The Journal that many residents and groups had expressed a desire to do something positive in the wake of the protest.
“We were finding it difficult just to bridge the gap on communication, so organisations and local representatives came together,” she said.
“People wanted to put their welcoming hat out and say they wanted to support the school in its decision in using it over the Christmas period and that we will be welcoming to new people wanting to move into the area. We’re going to be thinking about how we can get out there into the community and do something in a positive way.
Whether it’s people seeking emergency accommodation or people in general buying or moving into the community, integration and all of those pieces are important. We want to have that network, so that when issues do arise, you have that there so it doesn’t get out of hand.
Drimnagh resident Buzz O’Neill, who is also involved with Drimnagh For All, told The Journal that the group is aiming to push back against misinformation and to hold events in the area for locals, adding that there’s been an “incredible response” already.
He said the community was ”pretty shocked” by the way Drimnagh was “invaded by people” to protest against people that were seeking refuge.
“We absolutely understand that certain parents may have had some concerns around the use of the school and maybe not being informed, but that was a board of management decision by the school and we 100% stand by the principal and the school and what they did,” he said.
“To picket a school as children were going into school, we just found disgusting. That was a step too far. There’s absolutely no need for that. We live in a very mixed race community anyway, and there are many children of different races going to that school, and we were just appalled that that was what they saw on their first day back at school.
“I think the problem here was the flooding of misinformation, and we’re just trying to push back a little bit of that.”
Demonstrations have taken place in several areas in Dublin in recent months against the housing of refugees and asylum seekers, including in East Wall and in recent days, Ballymun.
Videos emerged over the weekend of a crowd of people outside a building in Ballymun where families were living, chanting “get them out”, with one person holding a sign saying “Ireland is full”.
There has been widespread condemnation of the protests across the political spectrum, with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar saying that there is no excuse “for racism of any form”.
While protests have been attended by locals whose political affiliations are unknown, the demonstrations have also been supported and encouraged by parties and non-local individuals associated with the far-right, including people who have travelled across the country to demonstrate.
Further protests took place in several areas across Dublin and in Fermoy on Thursday evening, which were condemned by the Department of Equality. Some of the protests were attended by members of the far-right National Party.
Community groups have been set up in both East Wall and Ballymun to engage with residents and hold events so local people can meet new members of the community.
O’Neill said the genuine concerns of locals are “without a doubt” being exploited by outside groups.
“It’s all been stoked by the exact same people. The modus operandi is identical. Again, all we can do is try and put the facts out there and let people make up their own minds,” he said.
We’ve had a housing crisis here long before even the war in Ukraine. We’ve had a housing crisis here long before Direct Provision. We all know that these are issues that the Government need to tackle, but people are using that.
“Nobody coming in here seeking refuge or asylum is jumping to the top of a housing list. That’s just not the case. They have a very long, drawn-out process to go through, and for them to arrive in Ireland and find people outside a hotel they’re being housed in or a building like a school shouting ‘get them out’, that’s just unacceptable.”
De Nortúin also said that there are genuine concerns among the community in Drimnagh, but that they are being misconstrued by misinformation from outside groups.
“There’s two pieces to it, I suppose. One of them is concern and frustration, and there’s a deeper rooted reason as to why that’s there. Social policy has been tipping away at communities for years. We’ve been saying this for a long time, and maybe some areas have never recovered from recession times,” she said.
“This is where we’re starting to see this disenfranchisement as well, because there isn’t a lot of services in the areas. There’s obviously a major issue with housing and health.”
She said that these concerns have been used to “whip up frustration and pointing the finger in the direction” of asylum seekers and refugees.
I’ve heard comments saying: ‘We don’t have a housing crisis, we have an immigration crisis’. We had a housing crisis before any immigration blew over before Ukraine.
“There’s a difficulty in getting people to come to the table to talk about the situation when they’re being misconstrued with the likes of outside forces twisting and warping the actual issues.
“I don’t think this is going to go away. I think it’s going to change to different formations. We’re always going to have to be tackling misinformation that’s going to go into communities and cause hate, when we’re spending so much time to build up communities for resilience.”
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