The Government’s commitment to establishing a community hotel in the centre of Roscrea will help address many of the concerns of locals who are angry at the loss of the town’s existing hotel to accommodate international protection applicants, a local councillor has predicted.
Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Smith said he could understand people’s shock at the news that the owners of Racket Hall on the outskirts of the town had opted to close the hotel as a commercial enterprise and instead offer it to the Government to accommodate international protection applicants.
The move led to locals in Roscrea mounting a protest at Racket Hall and, on Monday, to demonstrators and gardaí clashing as gardaí set up a cordon to enable some 17 international protection applicants to be brought into hotel.
But Cllr Smith said he was confident that the move by Government to support the development of the former Damer Court Hotel – known locally as Grant’s – as a community hotel on Castle Street would address one of the central arguments made by those angry over the closure of Racket Hall.
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He explained the redevelopment of the 24-bedroom Grant’s Hotel, which closed in 2013, had been on the agenda for more than a year since Roscrea became the first town in Co Tipperary to qualify for inclusion in the Government’s Town Centre First programme aimed at regenerating towns.
“Roscrea was approved for Town Centre First status in February 2022 and a plan for Roscrea was published in November 2023 – a series of workshops and public engagements identified the refurbishment of Grant’s as a key element in the regeneration of the centre of town,” he said.
Cllr Smith said that when local public representatives learned on Thursday from the Department of Integration that Racket Hall was going to become a centre for international protection applicants, they discussed it at Tipperary County Council on Friday.
“Since Friday, I have been working actively with Deputy Jackie Cahill and we had a meeting with Minister [for Integration] Roderic O’Gorman yesterday and we got a commitment from the Government to acquire Grant’s Hotel for the State and develop as it community hotel for the people of Roscrea.”
Cllr Smith said it was important to realise the community hotel was being developed for the people of Roscrea and would provide the usual services such as catering for weddings, funerals and family celebrations as well as accommodation but would not be used to accommodate asylum seekers.
He said that following meetings with Tipperary County Council management he was confident there would be no obstacles to the project in terms of planning, while funding would be accessed through two schemes, the Town and Village Renewal Scheme and the Rural Development Programme.
Tipperary County Council and the North Tipperary Development Company will both provide guidance and expert advise for the hotel which will be run by a board of directors which he expects will be drawn from many who served on the Roscrea Town Centre First committee, he said.
Cllr Smith said he hoped to visit the country’s only existing community hotel, Sliabh Beagh in Knockatallon near Scotstown in Co Monaghan, over the coming days to hear their experience and he expressed confidence that the Roscrea project could prove equally successful.
Mary Mullen, chair of the Sliabh Beagh board of directors, said she saw no reason why the Roscrea project could not prove just as successful and said people in Knockatallon would be happy to speak about their experience in setting up and running a community hotel.
Ms Mullen explained that the Sliabh Beagh Hotel, which employs about 30 people between full-time and part-time staff and is run by a 12-person board of directors, is run as a normal commercial hotel but also serves up to 100 subsidised meals a week to the elderly in the community.
She said the project began in 2000 when money was obtained under the International Fund for Ireland as part of the peace process and an old community hall which was built with voluntary labour in the 1950s was redeveloped as a hotel to help stimulate the local economy.
“Our total build would have cost around €1.2 million – €300,000 of which was raised locally, we got loans of €250,000 that would have been backed by personal guarantees by the directors, but we were lucky we had our loans paid off before the worst part of the recession,” she said.
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