A High Court judge has refused to grant an emergency injunction to the residents of Dundrum village, Co Tipperary who want to stop asylum seekers being accommodated in a local hotel.
Mr Justice David Holland said no case had been made to grant an ex partie injunction where only one side is represented. He said the application simply did not have the necessary urgency.
Dundrum residents had lodged 230 affidavits with the High Court complaining that International Protection Applicants will be offered rooms at the Dundrum House Hotel resort from Thursday.
Mr Justice Holland, who read the affidavits and gave his judgment last night, said communities may not - as a legal right - vet or veto those who seek to live among them,
He said there was a “notable peculiarity” that the person who brought the case lived in Co Westmeath and he did not understand why Dundrum residents were not named as applicants in the proceedings.
He said concern was raised about the potential intrusion into private dwellings. “It is saying that International Protection Applicants are more likely to be burglars than those staying as guests at the hotel or Ukrainian refugees staying there. I lend no weight to that assertion,” the judge stated.
In an application to the court led by Patrick McGreal from Westmeath, the village residents sought an interim injunction to stop the former mansion and estate Dundrum House Hotel being used to house International Protection Applicants (IPA).
In separate proceedings against the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage they also want to stop the use of the Planning and Development (exempted Development) regulations of 2023 which allows buildings to be used to house International Protection Applicants.
Dundrum House Hotel for the last two years has accommodated Ukrainian refugees and locals are objecting to any continued use of the hotel to house asylum seekers as the Ukrainians leave.
A round the clock demonstration which began outside the hotel in late May is continuing.
Mr McGreal submitted that locals believed the turning of the hotel into an IPA centre would cause “irreparable damage” to the village and the local economy and “destroy tourism.”
He maintained that International Protection Applicants will be at the hotel from today (Thursday) and they sought an injunction to stop this.
Mr Justice Holland asked what the difference between Ukrainians and International Protection Applicants was staying at the hotel.
Mr McGreal said the Ukrainians were refugees and they had integrated into the community and could work.
In one affidavit referred to in court from a local resident it was stated there were fears "the influx of people not of Irish origin into an Irish village will cause a lot of unrest.”
