Residents in Saggart on the south-west fringes of Dublin still proudly refer to their leafy community with traditional Irish pub, church and local high street as a village, but the sleepy town has become the frontline of Ireland’s exploding migrant crisis.
The quiet community has been convulsed by two nights of violent disorder amid mounting tensions over a local hotel housing 2,300 asylum seekers, representing one third of the town’s total population.
Riots erupted following the alleged sexual assault of a 10-year-old Irish girl by a 26-year-old African migrant awaiting deportation outside the controversial Citywest hotel complex.
Officers have fought pitched battles with furious locals, stopping crowds of hundreds from gaining access to the hotel. Some protesters charged police lines with horse-drawn carts, and three Gardaí have been hospitalised in the clashes.
Just like in Epping and Stockport this past summer, police in Ireland have been forced to confront residents furious their unassuming home has been transformed into a holding centre for migrants. And like Epping, patient and friendly locals appear to have snapped after sex crimes were reported.
‘Nobody Had a Problem With Ukrainians’
Amanda Adeba, 39, a spokesperson for the Saggart Guardians, a group opposed to migrants housed in the Citywest hotel, said the scale of the influx has overwhelmed the small community.
We are only a small village, but we have the biggest hotel in the whole of Ireland now full of asylum seekers,” Mrs Adeba said.
“Nobody had a problem when it was just Ukrainians because they were fleeing war, but now we also have thousands of single, unvetted men with many of them coming from very different cultures to our own. They fight amongst themselves and there is a problem with anti-social behaviour such as drinking and drug taking in public areas around the village.”
Tensions were already heightened in Dublin this week after a Ukrainian teenager was killed in an attack at a refugee centre, allegedly carried out by a Somali migrant.
Last month, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said there were currently about 33,000 people in what Ireland describes as “international protection”. According to the BBC, that figure was just 7,244 in 2017, representing a more than fourfold increase in seven years.
Mother Fears for Daughters’ Safety
Mrs Adeba, whose husband is from Nigeria, said she feared for the safety of their two daughters aged six and nine, and felt unable to let her older child play outside or walk home from school alone.
“The Government went ahead and turned Citywest into a massive centre for refugees, despite this area not having the proper infrastructure. We do not even have our own Garda station here,” she said.
“We do not condone violence, and all our protests have been peaceful, but I blame the Government for what has been going on because they did not listen to the people. It feels like Ireland is being destroyed.”
Mrs Adeba expressed particular concern about the lack of a curfew at the hotel, allowing migrants to roam freely at all hours.
“My concern is that the hotel does not have a curfew so migrants are free to come and go as they wish, even at night. But the authorities say they cannot do it because so many of them work night shifts,” she explained.
Rapid Population Growth
Saggart has been one of Ireland’s fastest growing communities for many years, with the number of full-time residents more than doubling from 2,144 in 2011 to 4,573 in 2022, according to official statistics.
A string of recent new developments is thought to have increased its population to nearly 6,000 people without taking into account the residents staying in the hotel, courtesy of Irish taxpayers.
The giant Citywest hotel, which boasted 764 guest rooms, a 4,000-seat conference centre, two golf courses and a leisure centre, became Ireland’s biggest hotel when it opened in 1994 after being built by millionaire property developer Jim Mansfield.
It went into receivership in 2010 before being sold to a succession of property companies and closing in March 2020 when the Covid pandemic struck. The Irish government struck a deal to use it as an isolation centre before continuing to lease the complex in 2022, initially housing Ukrainian families fleeing their country’s war against Russia before developing the conference centre to accommodate refugees.
Government Purchase Controversy
The Irish government bought the 14-acre Citywest hotel site outright for €148.2 million (£128.8 million) in July this year, as an alternative to leasing it, which cost €70 million (£60.9 million) last year and €53 million (£46.1 million) in 2023.
The purchase was described by the Irish government as “part of a long-term strategy to develop a sustainable accommodation system” for migrants, with expectations to recoup the money within four years.
The hotel is now by far the largest of Ireland’s 320 so-called International Protection Accommodation Service centres, which house around 32,500 asylum seekers or refugees across Ireland.
But assurances that buying the complex will potentially save the State more than €1 billion (£869 million) over the next 25 years have done nothing to alleviate the fears of Saggart residents who believe their community has been taken over.
Opposition to the migrant centre has been led by the Saggart Guardians, which collected over 13,000 signatures on a petition opposing the purchase of the hotel.
‘Sitting Drinking on Concrete Seats’
Another resident, Anne Kavanagh, a mother-of-two in her mid-40s, said she no longer allows her son to walk home from school alone.
“I only live five minutes walk from the hotel, but I always pick my son up from school because I don’t think it is safe for him to walk alone,” she said.
“You often see guys from the hotel sitting drinking on the concrete seats in the centre of Saggart, or even taking drugs in the graveyard where we have had graves vandalised. They seem to get welfare payments on a Wednesday or a Thursday and go to the shop to buy alcohol.”
Mrs Kavanagh described encounters with groups of men as intimidating and unpredictable.
“They go out in groups and are very intimidating. They are unpredictable and when you walk past them, you can tell that they are saying something about you. Other women get it far worse and I have heard of an incident of indecent exposure.”
She recounted a particularly concerning incident: “I even saw a couple of them sipping Corona beer and smoking marijuana on the steps of the primary school last Thursday, just as children were about to exit from an after-school club. I called the Garda and they came and moved them on.”
Property Prices Plummet
A local businessman who only wanted to be named as Richard, 61, said the presence of migrants had devastated local property prices, leading him and his wife to decide to sell up and move out of town.
“My house has been on the market for eight weeks for €340,000 (£295,700) and there is nobody even wanting to view it. The estate agent is telling us to lower the price by €40,000 (£34,800),” he said.
Professional boxer and social media influencer Jordan Burnett, 28, told how the gym on the Citywest hotel site had stayed open for local members, but he had now decided to quit his membership.
“I am giving it up because I don’t like what is going on there. The gym is in a separate building to the conference centre,” he said.
“I posted a video out of the window showing 40 or 50 new arrivals getting out of a bus, and when I later went back to the gym, they had blacked out all the windows to stop anyone looking out at the bus again.”
Mr Burnett added: “My girlfriend’s mother got married in the hotel when it was a wonderful venue. This used to be a brilliant place to live, but it has got horrible in the last 18 months to two years. People don’t want to let their children use the playground in case they get snatched.”
Healthcare Worker’s Testimony
A mother-of-three from the area who is also a healthcare worker said local services cannot cope with such a huge influx.
“Local services are already overloaded here, and we are unable to cope with such a huge number of people in the hotel. It feels like the community here is being used as a sacrificial lamb to take in so many people,” she said.
“The young men in the hotel are from different cultures. They hang around the area in the park and around shops, and you see them leering at young girls. It is very intimidating.”
She expressed frustration with the government’s failure to listen to community concerns.
“When this all started, we didn’t really want to have protests directly, but we did have a couple of rolling car protests to slow down traffic. We are not racist and we don’t want to intimidate people. We just want to draw attention to it.”
Referring to the alleged assault on the 10-year-old girl, she said: “What happened to this young girl was just horrendous. We knew something like this would happen. It’s just heartbreaking. The protests that are happening now have become a nationwide issue and it reflects the frustration that local people feel about the Government not listening to their concerns. The convention centre was never intended to house people.”
Ukrainian Women Left Terrified
Ukrainian friends Yuliia Askarova, 30, and Mariia Sameniva, 27, who both work as baristas and live together near the hotel, said they were left terrified in their home as riots erupted on Tuesday night.
Protesters smashed up utility units housing gas and electricity supplies close to their home to use bricks to hurl at police, leaving some local properties without power.
“We are also migrants, but we are two women and not the same as the men living in the hotel. I have not had any problems personally, but you are wary with a lot of men around. I don’t think the hotel should be used for this purpose,” Yuliia said.
“It was terrible and scary when the riot was going on. My car was vandalised when it was parked over the road. It was very dangerous when the protesters started to throw bricks.”
Mariia added: “You have to be careful. A few days ago, a 17-year-old Ukrainian boy got stabbed and killed at an accommodation centre and an asylum seeker has been charged with his murder.”
Ireland as UK Gateway
The increase in asylum seekers comes alongside a growing issue of migrants attempting to use Ireland as a stopover to reach the United Kingdom.
Criminal gangs reportedly charge up to €8,000 (£6,960) to smuggle migrants across the border from Ireland into Northern Ireland after advertising it as a safer route than crossing the Channel on small boats, according to officials who spoke to the Mail last year.
Migrants then have the choice of staying in Northern Ireland or travelling to mainland Great Britain, exploiting the Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland.
The move by the Irish government to purchase the Citywest hotel contrasts with the continuing UK government policy of housing asylum seekers in hotels leased from private companies at huge cost, while struggling to find enough accommodation in houses of multiple occupation and facilities such as old military bases.
In another major difference, asylum seekers in the UK are banned from working and survive on taxpayer handouts, whilst those in Ireland can obtain licences to work once their applications to stay have been considered for six months.
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