Ireland’s Issue with Asylum Seekers: Ukrainians Avoiding Military Service and a Nigerian Suspect of Rape. Government Provides Free Hotel Stay even for Employed Individuals. The Controversy in a Once Liberal European Nation Described by Robert Hardman.

The new arrivals are forming an orderly queue outside an unlovely Dublin office block surrounded by a stockade of temporary metal fencing. 

This is the International Protection Office (IPO), first port of call for anyone seeking asylum in Ireland. 

I meet a Nigerian man with a huge wheeled suitcase still bearing the EasyJet tag from his flight from Britain. 

He explains that he came to the UK to avoid being deported to Nigeria, a place where he doesn’t have any relatives. On a happier note, Hussein Ahmed and his wife from Bangladesh, appear to be in good spirits.

They arrived six months ago, seeking asylum because ‘things were bad with the family’, but are here to register the birth of their new baby girl. 

She thus, becomes an Irish citizen in perpetuity. A couple of fidgety security guards are at the gate. 

They show a keener interest in me compared to the other individuals (predominantly men) in the line. One of the guards approaches me, inquiring if I need any assistance, curious about the intentions of this nosy white, middle-aged man.

The guard’s apprehension reflects the significant rise in concerns regarding Ireland’s struggling asylum system, aggravated by the escalating number of arrivals causing tension among the Irish populace.

Latest figures show that Ireland is now housing more than 33,000 applicants for what is known as ‘international protection’ (byway of comparison, that would equate to nearly half a million people with an asylum claim in Britain, versus the actual figure of around 224,000).

Meanwhile, this week’s data shows that Ireland’s staunchly pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli stance over the war in Gaza has produced a 700 per cent spike in asylum applications from Palestinians (as Israeli politicians demand that Ireland take them).

Every few days here, news leaks out that yet another hotel or empty premises has been re-designated as an IPAS centre (International Protection Accommodation Service), with next to no local consultation. 

This, in turn, has led to ugly street confrontations and protests which often spill over into extreme violence. Two weeks ago, a Nigerian asylum-seeker was stabbed to death in the middle of the capital.

In Coolock in Dublin’s northern suburbs, I find that the residents have set up a protest camp – festooned with Irish flags and bunting – next to a derelict paint factory earmarked for use as a big IPAS centre. 

The authorities have erected a wall of concrete across the entrance (daubed with slogans including ‘Get them out! Free Coolock’). Through the gaps, I see the remains of the huge digger which was supposed to be driving the conversion works.

It has been torched. 

Compounding the anger is the fact that developers turning buildings into hostels enjoy planning exemptions plus healthy rental rates which have seen speculators piling in, eager for a slice of the government’s asylum budget, currently running at £70 per person per day. 

Property prices thus shoot up for the rest. Much as some might like to depict this as ugly xenophobia stirred up by the ‘far Right’, the picture is stubbornly different. 

In recent days, the most vocal critic of this national stampede for property conversion has been the militantly Left-wing nationalist movement, Sinn Fein.

The party’s migration spokesman, Matt Carthy, has produced a document advising party activists to ‘demand community engagement’ at the first whiff of a new IPAS centre. 

It feels eerily reminiscent of the recent German election in which the hard-Right AfD shot into second place exploiting similar concerns. 

It may be unusual – and even amusing – to see the neo-Marxist cohorts of Gerry Adams channelling their inner Nigel Farage and being accused of ‘dog whistle politics’, as happened on the Irish state broadcaster, RTE, this week. 

But it is merely a reflection of the way this issue stirs the Irish political pot.

Sinn Fein wants its footsoldiers to object to new centres in poor areas, arguing that the rich are better-placed to absorb the pressures on doctors, schools and services.

Yet when I head for just this sort of prosperous district, I find the very same objections. 

Indeed, I am just round the corner from the IPO. It is a weekday lunchtime and, not so long ago, Ruth Hamilton’s Mamma Mia restaurant would be heaving, with a queue round the block. 

Not lately. Footfall has dropped by 70 per cent.’ Things have got so bad that I am refusing to pay my business rates,’ she tells me.

All the streets around are bristling with thick metal fences which make the area about as appealing as a prison perimeter. 

Still, at least the fences mean the pavements are no longer covered with tents and waste (human variety included).

Nor are people lighting fires under Ruth’s windows any more. That happened last year when so many people were flocking to register at the IPO that they ended up camping in the surrounding streets. 

Now that the queues for the IPO are under control, the locals want the fences removed but Dublin City Council will say only that they are ‘under review’.

This week, there was more unwelcome news for locals. Until recently, the large office block across Mount Street was the headquarters of the Irish League Of Credit Unions. 

It is now empty and locked up, the only sign of life being one poor tropical plant slowly dying in reception.

Ruth and her neighbours learned that this building is to be converted into a hostel for up to 700 asylum-seekers. 

Local retailer, Michael Finlay, points out that this is in addition to two other migrant accommodation centres. 

This, he says, will more than double the local resident population from its current 800 souls.

It is unlikely to create any significant new footfall for places like Mr Finlay’s health-food shop and cafe, The Punnet. 

But what really upsets locals like him is the way in which the developers, the council and the Ministry of Equality can open a new home for hundreds of undocumented young men with barely a nod to the locals.’

It’s the lack of communication with the community which is a massive issue for us,’ he says. Like so many other European nations, Ireland is discovering that the public’s tolerance threshold for mass immigration is finite.

What makes this so significant is that, up until now, Ireland has been positively enthusiastic towards those seeking a new life here. 

A country whose national identity has so often been shaped by narratives of hardship, emigration and the plucky underdog has been happy and proud of its generosity. 

The UK is sometimes described as ‘a soft touch’ for undocumented migrants. Compared to Ireland, it seems almost Dickensian.

This week, I have met asylum-seekers in full-time work (as is allowed after a certain time) and owning cars – while continuing to live in free hotel accommodation. I have met some whose definition of asylum is, at best, opaque.

At Dublin’s Capuchin Day Centre, customers of all ages and races queue for a free cooked lunch distributed to all-comers, with no questions asked. 

Here, I meet Moroccan brothers, Mohamed and Mouhssine, who had been living in London for five years before claiming asylum here this month ‘because London is too expensive now’.

They share a room in a hotel with free meals and a weekly allowance of 38.80 euros.I ask them what they are fleeing in their hometown of Marrakesh, a year-round tourist destination for the British. 

They laugh. ‘It is good for tourists but not for les pauvres,’ says Mohamed, adding that they used to return there every few months to see the family.

None (certainly none of those I have met) is here to enjoy a life on benefits. All are mustard keen to work and contribute. 

Yet, they all need somewhere to live. And many parts of Ireland are now, finally, saying that enough is enough. 

Even those who would see themselves as enlightened liberals are starting to ask increasingly awkward questions. 

Take this month’s horrific case of the Nigerian asylum-seeker stabbed to death in central Dublin after an altercation outside a nightclub.

Four men have been charged and a fifth arrested as the police investigation continues.

However, many ordinary Irish people want to know why Quam Babatunde, 34, was in Ireland in the first place, given that, in 2019, he had been arrested and accused of rape in Italy, prior to his deportation back to Nigeria. 

Moreover, what was he doing in a smart nightclub in the most expensive quarter of central Dublin on a Saturday night, many miles from his asylum hostel and long after public transport had stopped?

I retrace his final steps. The nightclub in question, Twenty Two, is closed for a private aviation industry event. The streets are bustling with diners spilling out of places like the Marco Pierre White Steakhouse.

People are looking in the windows of chi-chi jewellers like Boodles. There is, of course, no rule precluding anyone from this part of town.

It’s just that, to many Irish people, the whole story sits a little oddly with the conventional refugee narrative. 

The Irish Daily Mail has asked the Irish Department of Justice to explain its policy on offering asylum protection to those facing criminal charges in other countries. 

A week on, it has yet to receive a reply. The system is certainly welcoming. 

The Irish government website helpfully explains how to generate the Personal Public Service Number (PPSN) which will then give each applicant their cash benefits: ‘A number of options will be available to click. Click on ‘other’ and type, ‘I am an asylum seeker’.

Those whose claim for refugee status is rejected (as most are), can still claim for ‘subsidiary protection’ or ‘leave to remain’ and, after five years, acquire an Irish passport.

New arrivals are housed in a range of IPAS accommodation. Some are in hotels like the Red Cow, a 300-room, four-star hotel complex next to the M50.

Arriving at 5pm, I find many residents returning home from a day at work. A Nigerian father-of-two tells me that he came to Ireland two years ago, having originally emigrated to South Africa until he was ‘not welcome there’.

He is still awaiting a ruling on his asylum application, since he says he is from an oppressed minority, but has a job working in a warehouse while his children are in local schools.

Several refugees have cars, though a squint at some of the windscreen discs suggests that not all are insured.

As ever, the security guards on the door politely refuse to let me in and say the manager is ‘away’. Even grander – with pool and gym – is the Citywest Hotel, Conference, Leisure and Golf Resort near Saggart. 

Its two large complexes are divided on national lines. One is for Asian asylum-seekers, according to one resident I meet on the doorstep. 

She was a journalist in Bangladesh before things became too dangerous a year ago and she fled with her baby, first to London and then to Dublin. 

The accommodation is comfortable, she says, but the lack of cooking facilities makes it difficult for those with young families.

The other hotel block is for Ukrainians. Having expected to find this full of women and children, I am surprised by the large number of men staying here, given that all adult Ukrainian men aged between 25 and 60 are supposed to be back home in uniform.

‘That’s one reason for being here,’ says David (not his real name), a former marketing executive who has a young family and is studying English at language school. 

‘I have no job to go back to in Ukraine. Maybe we will stay here after the war.’ Support for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is sketchy. 

‘He could have avoided war,’ says Peter (not his real name), 38, his eyes welling up as he recalls the horrors he witnessed during the 2022 siege of Mariupol.

How did he avoid being drafted into the Army? ‘I am sorry but Ukraine is the most corrupt country. People just pay. 

‘If Ireland’s professional classes are broadly favourable to immigration, blue collar workers are not. 

Back in the city centre I talk to three Dublin-born painters I find working on a site.’It’s a disgrace. 

What about putting Irish people first?’ asks John, 44. ‘We work all hours and pay our taxes but we can’t afford to live anywhere like this.’

Anthony, 22, says that people are fed up with being accused of racism for voicing what many are thinking. ‘It’s all fine for the politicians in their gated communities but, where I live, women don’t want to go out of the house if there are hundreds of men hanging around all day and night with nothing to do.

‘What about those ugly protests? ‘I don’t blame them,’ says Nathan also 22. As St Patrick’s Day looms large, it’s not hard to spot some ugly cracks in the craic.