Government drops plan for international protection accommodation at former Crown Paints site
THE GOVERNMENT HAS dropped plans for asylum seeker accommodation at the former Crown Paints site in Coolock.
There had been plans to use the north Dublin site to house up to 500 people seeking international protection but the Department of Justice has confirmed this is no longer the case today.
Protests which turned violent took place at the site last summer when a Government-contracted provider attempted to carry out work on the site.
In a statement circulated this morning to local politicians, the department's Community Engagement Team said it was 'no longer considering the offer of a potential IPAS accommodation centre at the former Crown Paints site in Coolock in Dublin'.
'Since late 2023, a provider had been developing a proposal to convert the site to an IPAS accommodation centre. The prolonged nature of this particular proposal's progress through development and planning stages have been significant factors in the decision to discontinue the appraisal of this offer,' the department said.
Advertisement
'All offers of international protection accommodation are appraised according to a range of factors, including the site and its potential, value for money to the State, planning matters and any works required to meet the required standards.'
The department added that consideration is 'also given to the location and locality, access to services, resident welfare, health and wellbeing, and the current level of need in the sector'.
Labour MEP Aodhán Ó Ríordáin called on Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan to 'initiate an inquiry immediately' into how the site had been so 'grossly' handled.
'What has been lost here is any sort of coherent, well thought-out strategy from the Department,' Ó Ríordáin said.
'The Minister and the Department of Justice must now instigate a full inquiry into how this was so poorly handled so the mistakes of Coolock can't happen again.'
Local Fianna Fáil councillor Daryl Barron welcomed today's decision, adding that he had been engaging with local communities and department officials over the the past 12 months.
'The building of former Crown Paints was not a suitable option for anyone seeking accommodation. This decision today will put an end to speculation and will be a relief for many local residents,' he said on social media.
Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article.
Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
Learn More
Support The Journal
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Journal
an hour ago
- The Journal
Children deported this week are 'victims for a state wanting to look tough', Dublin TD says
A DUBLIN TD has said that children should not face deportations from the state as outcry continues over the removal of a number of kids on a chartered flight to Nigeria by the Irish government this week. Social Democrats deputy Gary Gannon said that children were being made 'victims for a state wanting to look tough', adding that Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan has 'serious questions to answer' over this week's deportations. It comes after the principal of St James school in Dublin 8 that saw two of its pupils deported to Nigeria on Wednesday night criticised the decision to deport , saying that staff and pupils have been left 'devastated'. Five children and thirty adults were removed from Ireland on the chartered flight as part of the Department of Justice's new crackdown on immigration. School principal Ciarán Cronin had told The Journal that two of the children who were removed from the state had been pupils at his school for three years, and have in that time become an integral part of the community there. 'They've been part of our football team, part of our school fabric, part of our school lives,' he said yesterday. Defending the use of the flights yesterday, O'Callaghan said that deportations 'aren't a very pleasant part of the job,' but said the system becomes 'meaningless' if it won't make a difference whether people are granted asylum or not. Gannon told RTÉ Radio One's Today with Claire Byrne that there should be a regularisation scheme for children who have been in Ireland for a year, allowing them to stay here. 'If the system doesn't working at the moment we cannot punish the children that are over here,' he said, adding that a 'compassionate' approach was needed. Gannon also sought information on how many children are currently on deportation lists in Ireland. Advertisement He said the deportation of the children this week was 'devastating', especially for kids who were in Ireland for the past three and four years who have little 'The children on that flight, in the St James school in the Red Cow, they shouldn't be the victims for a state looking to look tough.' 'The consequences are not only for those on the deportation flight, it's for the other 20 odd children,' Gannon said, referring to St James School, describing it 'momentously painful' for the children involved. 'They have the right to come here, if the system is taking too long that is a failure of the state, not a failure of those parents,' Gannon said. Sinn Féin frontbench TD Eoin Ó Broin told reporters this morning that Ireland needs an international protection system that is compassionate, that is human rights based, that takes decisions in a timely manner. Asked whether he believes it's right to deport children who have residing in Ireland over recent years, he said that 'the real problem here is nobody should be waiting for three, four or five years for those decisions to be made'. 'I think if the government took the advice that ourselves and many others, including advocacy groups for people seeking international protection, to ensure decisions were made in a timely manner, then we wouldn't have the kind of challenges that we've seen this week,' the Dublin Mid-West TD said. 'But ultimately international protection has to do what it says. You're either granted international protection, you get your right to remain in the state, or if you're not granted international protection, you lose an appeal, and you lose the application to remain.' Asked about criticism that the government may be trying to appear more aggressive towards migration, he said the issue was that the government had 'made a complete mess' of the international protection system. 'Just like they've made a mess of housing, whether it's housing vacancy or housing more generally, they've made a mess of international protection, and therefore we will continue to raise the concerns that we have always raised with government until they get the system right.' With reporting from Mairead Maguire Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Tesla suffers suffers biggest one-day drop in market value after Trump-Musk spat
Tesla 's market value suffered its biggest one-day drop on record on Thursday as an escalating feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk triggered a sharp sell-off in the carmaker's shares. The electric vehicle group's shares closed down more than 14 per cent, erasing $153 billion (€134 billion) from its market capitalisation, after the US president signalled he could terminate US government contracts with Mr Musk's companies. 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,' Mr Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social. Thursday's drop left Tesla's share price down 25 per cent since the start of the year. READ MORE The spat between two of the world's most powerful men included repeated barbs from Mr Musk on his platform X and Mr Trump's comment that the billionaire, who has been a close ally since the election, was 'wearing thin'. The Tesla sell-off reverberated through US stock markets, with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ending the session down 0.5 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively. Both indices began to decline at around midday, when Mr Trump and Mr Musk began exchanging insults. The pair's 'petulant drama shook up the stock market', said Mike Zigmont, co-head of trading and research at Visdom Investment Group. 'The bond market didn't care, nor should it.' Tesla investors have had a rollercoaster few months. The stock rallied hard in the final quarter of last year after Mr Trump won his second term as president, but fell between mid-December and early March amid a broader market sell-off fuelled by Mr Trump's trade wars. Shares in rivals to Mr Musk's space exploration group SpaceX and its satellite broadband network subsidiary Starlink rose on Thursday as Tesla fell. AST SpaceMobile gained 7.5 per cent while communications group EchoStar jumped 17.4 per cent. The breakdown of Mr Musk's relationship with Mr Trump comes as his public interventions in European politics, including support for far right parties, have contributed to falling car sales across Europe. In March, JPMorgan strategists wrote in a note to clients that they 'struggle[d] to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly'. The cuts Mr Musk made to federal government spending as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency also sparked a backlash. The Tesla boss stepped back from his government role at the end of May, having blamed 'blowback' against his businesses. Some investors said the market should have anticipated Mr Musk's feud with Mr Trump, despite their earlier bonhomie. Renowned short seller Jim Chanos said on X that it was the 'Most. Predictable. Break-up. Ever.' – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
RTÉ News
8 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Latest GDP figures hint at return of Leprechaun Economics
Ten years ago Ireland's growth was described as "Leprechaun Economics" by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman after the State's Gross Domestic Product grew by an astonishing 26% in 2015. The row over how Ireland calculated its national accounts also prompted debate about whether the country was a "tax haven". The Department of Finance shut down tax loopholes and the Central Statistics Office now offers alternative figures which give a clear picture of the domestic economy. Yesterday, the CSO published latest GDP figures showing the economy grew by an enormous 9.7% in the first three months of the year. By any measure, the figures were remarkable and caused considerable surprise in Government circles and among economists. Ordinary people did not suddenly become 10% richer in the first quarter of the year. But that's how it appears to international observers who use GDP as a measure of a country's national income. What's really happened is there has been a surge in exports as pharmaceutical companies have raced to ship products to the US ahead of Donald Trump's tariffs. Exports are only one component of GDP. Multinational companies have been booking profits in Ireland and that too has added to the surge in economic growth. Observers expect those profits will result in a significant rise in corporation tax in the coming months when that money is taxed. But the latest Exchequer returns, which show how much money Ireland collected in tax, reveal a more mixed picture. Corporation tax receipts are down so far this year by 9.4% while the other main taxes are up. The Department of Finance said that is due to a timing issue, so it is unlikely to be a structural decline in revenue. The Fiscal Advisory Council, an independent watchdog which monitors the public finances, has raised concern about the speed of increase in the Government's spending. It said current spending "is growing strongly so far this year, up 5.9% on the same period last year. This is much faster growth than Budget 2025 forecasts would allow. Should this continue, large overruns will occur". While the multinational sector is booming, the picture is different for the domestic economy, which grew by a moderate 0.8% in the first three months of this year. That is a much better barometer of conditions for workers who saw wage growth of 0.8% in the first three months of the year. One way or another, the activity of multinationals is distorting Ireland's economic figures. The lesson for the Government is that circumstances are going to be highly volatile as it prepares for the Budget over the summer months.
