Gardaí are continuing to try and establish a motive for a violent clash at a hotel being used as a direct provision centre in Killarney, Co Kerry which led to four people requiring hospital treatment for stab wounds.
Six men are in custody in connection with the incident, which broke out about 8.15pm on New Year’s day between two groups of men from eastern Europe and north Africa.
The men, all in their 20s and 30s, were being accommodated at a reception centre for asylum seekers at the Hotel Killarney on Park Road.
A large number of gardaí were dispatched to the scene and two men were arrested and taken to Killarney Garda station. Four more men were detained on Monday.
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All six men are currently detained at Tralee and Killarney Garda Stations under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984.
A Garda source said: “There doesn’t seem to be any previous issues or tensions between these two groups, there was no nationality versus nationality issue going on. There was an altercation ... and it escalated into a full melee.
“But there was no forewarning as such and no previous animosity between them – there has been no incidents involving people of those nationalities at the centre before. It just appears there was an incident between two or three of each nationality and that was the spark that kicked it off.”
While gardaí are still trying to establish the exact sequence of events during the melee, it appears at least one of the perpetrators may have been armed with a knife which he wielded during the fracas before it was brought under control.
Gardaí remained at the hotel, which houses about 400 people, throughout the night.
Several hotel staff would not enter the building on Monday morning over fears for their safety, according to people familiar with the situation.
Killarney Immigrant Support Centre (KASI), which works with asylum seekers and refugees in the region, has expressed serious concern about the concentration of so many people in one hotel. The organisation provides assistance to about 400 asylum seekers in Killarney in three long-established centres – Linden House, Atlas House and Park Lodge.
The arrival of 400 more people placed a huge burden on their services, it said. The KASI drop-in advice centre is also dealing with 3,000 Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in Killarney since March.
The hotel was at the centre of controversy in October after it emerged the authorities planned to remove Ukrainian women and children who had arrived in Killarney in March and transfer them to Co Mayo to make room for more male direct provision applicants.
After local protests and action by KASI and Kerry County Council, alternative hotel accommodation was sourced for the Ukrainian refugees and their children in other hotels in the town.
Before Christmas, gardaí were called to intervene following a clash between a small number of males, including some residents from Hotel Killarney and another premises in the area.
Councillor Niall O’Callaghan, a town centre hotelier and independent member of the council, said there was huge concern in Killarney for the local tourism industry and the town’s reputation. “It is time for our Government TDs, particularly Brendan Griffin and Norma Foley, to step up to the mark on this and intervene with the Minister for Justice Simon Harris on behalf of Killarney. We in Killarney have spent hard years building our reputation as a leading tourist destination and we are watching it being dismantled.”
