Rumours, fears and half-truths abound in Corofin. The Government plans to fill the north Clare village's only tourist hostel with 20 asylum-seekers, and the locals are not happy. There is talk of people carrying diseases and criminal elements out to defraud Irish citizens. There are worries that the closure of the village's budget tourist amenity will destroy the summer trade for other businesses dependent on it. And there is anger that the Department of Justice did not consult locals before choosing the village as one of its new dispersal centres for asylum-seekers.

The gloves came off this week when the community made it clear to Department officials at a packed public meeting that, even if there is an accommodation crisis, it will not be dictated to from Dublin. If the Department goes the distance on this one it will find a tough opponent in the Corofin community, which fought to the bitter end over the Mullaghmore interpretative centre saga, which ended just this year.

Up to 500 people squeezed into St Patrick's Hall on Thursday night for a meeting with two besuited Department of Justice officials who were taken to task for the decision to "dump" asylum-seekers on a village where even Irish non-locals are casually referred to as "outsiders".

As the hall steadily filled with people of all ages, the local priest stood at the back, shaking hands and no doubt wishing his services could attract such a congregation.

The battle-weary officials, who have taken their dispersal roadshow around the country for almost two weeks, took their positions behind a table, and braced themselves for yet another outpouring of anger, cynicism, and suspicion that the meeting was just a PR exercise.

The questions came thick and fast, many illustrating how readily the information vacuum around the asylum issue has been filled by fertile minds.

"What health checks have been done on these people?" demanded one woman. "What do we know about the criminal backgrounds?" said another. There were boos when one of the officials, Tom Ryan, said health screening was done on a voluntary basis and could not be forced on anyone. "Ridiculous," shouted a blonde woman dressed in jeans near the front, her two young daughters seated on either side of her.

Tom, the official dressed in a dark suit and crisp white shirt, remained unflustered. He countered with some statistics on the fairly high take-up of health screening and said there was no evidence of increases in illnesses such as hepatitis. The crowd didn't seem too impressed.

Tom's colleague, Colette Moray, stood with her arms folded across her chest as she detailed the housing crisis facing the State. "We are not trying to force large numbers of people on communities," she said. "We are just trying to put roofs over people's heads."

Her concerns were echoed by a few, while others questioned the fate of the 20 adults the Department proposes to send to the hostel, which it plans to lease for a year. Under the direct provision scheme, they will each receive full board and meals with £15 spending money per week. "What are 20 adults going to do all day?" asked a middle-aged man who said the proposal "reminds me of Spike Island without a boat".

"You asked us to help you and now we are asking you to help us," shouted another. "You cannot put 20 people into a community without support. It is an accident waiting to happen. Get your own house in order before you ask us to get ours in order."

Others suggested that it would be better to send a couple of small family units, and to accommodate them in a building in the village centre which is divided into flats and currently for sale.

Trish Cleary, a local pub and restaurant owner, read earnestly from a prepared statement on behalf of the business community.

"We feel no Department has the right to come into our village and interfere with or destroy the economy of the village," she said to prolonged applause. "There is alternative accommodation in Corofin. The business people demand you find it and do not take our hostel from us."

A man seated behind Trish put it more forcefully. "I worked 20 years away to come back home and I'm damned if I'll see my businesses being taken away from me."

The chairman, local primary school principal Declan Kelleher, held fast to the reins, conscious of the media presence and the bad publicity generated by such meetings over the past week in other towns and villages.

By way of a polite caution, he said Corofin people always had a tremendous generosity, tolerance and respect for diversity and agreed to chair the meeting only on the condition that no prejudicial remarks were made.

At the faintest whiff of a racist comment, he jumped to his feet and bolted out from behind the top table, his cheeks flushed, his hands held in the air trying to contain the sentiment.

Dressed in an open-neck shirt and cravat-style scarf with casual trousers, Mr Kelleher had chaired many a stormy meeting at the height of the Mullaghmore controversy, and had a practised technique.

But even he was shouted down when a woman began reading from a Sunday World report that Nigerians accounted for one of four of arrests for serious fraud in the Dublin area. Shouts of "let her speak" came from the rear of the hall, where there was standing room only. Mr Kelleher retired to his seat, and the woman finished reading. "We could have some of them coming to Corofin for all we know," she said.

He had more success in silencing a man who ranted from the rear of the hall about the "deafening silence about the Irish poor" and asked if Irish people were going to be "marginalised in their own country".

"There is character assassination of people taking place," retorted Mr Kelleher, to applause.

In an ideal world, Corofin would score low as a location for asylum-seekers who, when asked, generally say they prefer to be based in urban centres. A pretty village about 10 miles north-west of Ennis, it consists of a Catholic church, a heritage centre housed in a former Protestant church, about 10 pubs, a couple of restaurants, a few guesthouses and some shops, a post office and an ornate stone grotto with a Virgin Mary adorned with a blue neon halo.

It is twinned with a town in Brittany, and has a language training business. But asylum-seekers don't qualify for State-funded language classes.

ENNIS has an established community of asylum-seekers and the Irish Refugee Council has its only other branch outside Dublin in the town. But public transport between Corofin and Ennis is poor.

There is one daily bus which leaves the village at about 9.30 a.m. and returns at about 3 p.m, according to locals. The return fare is about £5 - a third of the money that an asylum-seeker on direct provision would receive per week. If you miss the CIE bus, there's always the post bus which goes on a circuitous route and can hold about eight passengers.

"You can't fish and walk the Burren on a wet day with u15 £15 in your pocket," said north Clare Fine Gael councillor Joe Arkins over a post-meeting pint in a Corofin pub.

The hostel dominates Corofin's main street, a large yellow-painted building with window boxes filled with colourful blooms. It is, say locals, the hub of the town's interdependent tourist trade. The backpackers who stay there every summer eat locally and drink locally. They come for the scenery, the walks, the angling on lake Inchiquin, which is only now recovering from the pollution which killed the fish and drove down tourist figures in the 1980s. While it is close to the Burren, Corofin is off the main tourist route and business people are grateful for all the trade they can get.

The decision by the hostel owners to lease the building to the Government for 12 months has created tension and resentment among locals. Most say they can't blame them for taking the commercial decision which, at the going Government rate of up to £27.50 per asylum-seeker per night, will net them as much as £3,850 a week.

At the end of Thursday night's meeting, the hapless officials promised to bring the community's concerns to the Minister for Justice by next Tuesday at the latest. They pledged to return to tell community representatives the outcome of that meeting. "I'd like to think that they would go back and do something," said Trish. "So far they haven't listened to any of the villages that they've gone to. We'd be the first that they'd have listened to."