The 400 asylum-seekers expected in Athlone will probably not arrive until early next month, according to official sources. A site which is being prepared for them just off the Athlone bypass has already earned the local nickname "Short Kesh". Mobile homes are arriving there daily.
The Athlone site made national headlines when the local Travelling community questioned the logic of putting so many people on a site beside theirs when they had been attempting to get extra accommodation for their own people for years.
Through the local Harmony Group, the Travelling community at the Blackberry site, which lies behind the Department of Education complex, stressed that they were not opposed to asylum-seekers going there.
Concerns were voiced by local representatives, who said they feared there would be overcrowding at the site and that public access to it was difficult.
But the initial upset when, without consultation, the Government decided to locate asylum-seekers there has eased somewhat over the weeks.
As in other parts of the State, local councillors were very perturbed at the development going ahead without any reference to them, and the atmosphere became very sour.
However, at a meeting of local voluntary bodies held in the town in the last week in April, it was decided that the hand of friendship should be stretched out to the visitors.
There was a call for a greater flow of information between the local community and the Directorate of Asylum-Seekers on how the process could be smoothed out.
A deputation from Athlone travelled to Dublin to meet directorate officials to explain their case and an official of the directorate, Ms Berenice O'Neill, attended a public meeting early this month in Athlone to try to explain what was about to happen.
Although heated at times, the meeting dealt with all the major issues including where the children might go to school, the health facilities to be provided and whether the asylum-seekers would be allowed to work.
Councillors and members of the public attending the meeting demanded to know what nationalities might be expected in the town.
A Department of Justice spokesman said during the week that it was unlikely that the reception centre would be ready this month.
He said he expected that the site should be ready for occupation early next month and then, depending on how great the pressure was for accommodation, people would be brought there.
Athlone, he said, could expect representatives of the whole range of nationalities who are coming here at the rate of 1,000 every month.
He said the majority of the asylum-seekers arriving in Ireland were coming from Romania, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"However, it is very difficult to guess the numbers and nationalities of people who will be arriving here in the future," he said.