The High Court has refused to allow several Co Galway residents to mount a challenge to the Government’s decision to house international protection applicants at a hotel.
Kinvara residents Ruth Sexton, Mary Boyce, Chris Hartnett Dalton and Paul Collins had asked the court for permission to challenge the decision from March to place up to 98 people in the village’s Merriman Hotel, which is home at present to about 50 Ukrainians.
The Merriman Hotel has accommodated international protection applicants since 2019, but, the residents said, the Government’s decision in March constituted a fresh designation of the building as international protection accommodation.
In designating a place as an accommodation centre, the Minister for Integration was obliged to consider the public interest under a statutory instrument provided for in the European Communities (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2018.
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The residents said the Minister breached this obligation in his alleged designation of the building in March.
In a ruling, Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger said the decision was not a fresh designation of the premises, so the statutory instrument did not apply. The hotel was clearly designated in 2019 when international protection applicants were first accommodated there, she said.
The judge said she was not satisfied the residents had presented arguable grounds on which their case would succeed.
She said the Minister was not legally obliged to consult residents or prepare an assessment of how his decision might affect local businesses, the availability of a local venue for family events or the availability of social services where a premises has already been designated as international protection accommodation.
Ms Justice Bolger said the Government’s decision was mainly grounded on the State’s obligation to provide accommodation to those seeking asylum.
“The [residents] accept that the State has a legal obligation to provide accommodation for applicants for international protection, but seem to ask the court to prioritise their personal interest in having a hotel in their locality to accommodate tourists and provide a local venue for their family events over the State’s attempt to comply with those national, European and international obligations,” she said.
Ms Sexton, of Sexton’s Bar, Main Street; Ms Boyce, of Cathercon; Mr Hartnett Dalton, of Northampton; and Mr Collins, of Crushoa, all Kinvara, had sought to bring proceedings against the Minister for Integration and the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration.
