This article is from page 3 of the 2006-04-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
ENNIS Town Mayor, Frankie Neylon, has said “there is no way in the world” that Council housing should be provided on a pro-rata basis for local asylum seekers.
He made his comment after figures released yesterday showed that 40 per cent of the applicants on the housing list are asylum seekers and refugees.
The number of asylum seekers on the housing list has increased by 90 per cent in the past three years.
In 2003, there were 148 asylum seekers on the list, which totaled 590, and this increased to 282 on the list that now accounts for 680 applicants.
Asked if asylum seekers be allocated housing on a pro-rata basis which would entitle them to 40 per cent of new Council housing stock, Cllr Neylon said: “there is no way in the world that should happen.
“I would be totally against that. That would be very unfair to people born and reared in this town who are on the housing list.”
“There is no hint of racism in what I say. I welcome all the asylum seekers to Ennis, but I do have a problem when it comes to housing stock if the government isn’t prepared to provide additional funding to build the extra homes.”
Council figures show that houses are not being allocated to asylum seekers on a proportional basis.
Last year, the Council allocated just four homes out of 46 to non-nationals, while in the new Council development of 48 homes at Roslevan, only nine have been allocated to nonnationals.
Cllr Neylon said the Council was playing “catch-up” in trying to deal with the growing housing list and that asylum seeker families will get preference over local families because they had larger families.
“The list now stands at 680 and will be 1,000 soon enough. There is no way of solving it with the current level of new housing.
“We will soon provide 48 homes in Roslevan, but it may be another three years before we open another development and the list will continue to grow.”
“If only one asylum seeker gets a house, that means one of our own didn’t qualify. If that is going to happen, I have no problem, but extra government funding should be made available because of the influx. Ennis is particularly vulnerable to a housing crisis due to the amount of asylum seekers. We have had more than our fair share.”
Nigerian-born councillor Dr Taiwoo Matthew said that, while the Council wasn’t meeting its housing targets, it was doing as much as it could with the resources available.
“We work as a team. The Council provided 46 homes last year, but I wish it could have provided 500 if it got the funding.”