Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)

I am really glad to have the opportunity to speak on these statements this evening and that the Minister is in the House to listen. My home town is Ballaghaderreen, west Roscommon. This is an issue I have raised repeatedly since my being elected in 2020 because our town was one of very few in the entire State to take in Syrian refugees back in 2017. It welcomed and gave céad míle fáilte to the refugees, who arrived in their hundreds. Indeed, hundreds have gone through the town’s reception centre, which remains open to this day. I could never understand why we were allowing and actually ensuring tension and anger in the community by not simply putting in, Department by Department, the resources needed for both the existing community and the new one. By not doing that, both suffer. That is the reality.

In Ballaghaderreen in 2017, funding came from the Department of justice for a new childcare facility. That was later pulled. A primary care centre was first promised way back in 2012, but because of the severe capacity issues affecting both GP practices in the town, both of which have had a waiting list for a long time, we are now back to square one. It has not been delivered and is once again going to tender. What happened was of great frustration to me in that it was not rocket science for each Department to say, if putting X number of people into a rural town, the town in County Roscommon with the highest level of deprivation and unemployment, that it would support that town, the new community and the existing residents. It could have been a blueprint, for the rest of the State, for what could and should have been done but was not done. Not doing it and not putting in place the required resources and services is what causes the tension and anger. These are totally avoidable, regardless of where the town is and what its situation is. Unfortunately, the resources were never put in. Luckily, funding for childcare was got elsewhere, and the project will proceed. It is desperately needed.

The circumstances of the primary school in Ballaghaderreen are similar. There are almost 30 different nationalities in it. It waited and waited and eventually got planning permission in July for 12 new classrooms. The works need to be progressed very quickly. I hope the lesson will be learned that towns that welcome and do right by people should be supported. That was not the case in Ballaghaderreen. The reception centre is now seeking an extension, and the planning application is with the council. Again, mistakes have been made by letting down good towns, towns with good communities that struggle as it is. They were really let down by the Government.

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