Ballinrobe Community Development Council Chairman rejects negative labels of South Mayo town

THE Chairman of Ballinrobe Community Development Council has hit out at negative comments made about Ballinrobe over the weekend.

Speaking to The Mayo News in the aftermath of protests over the proposed accommodation of 50 male international protection applicants at a local hotel, Frank Keane insisted that Ballinrobe is ‘a vibrant town’ that is ‘at full employment’.

Mr Keane, who owns a local playschool, criticised the lack of notice given to the community council prior regarding the arrival of 50 international protection applicants to JJ Gannon’s Hotel on Ballinrobe’s Main Street.

Fifty people from families are expected to arrive at the 12-bedroom hotel in the coming days, which Mr Keane said will require extra funding for local services.

“Ballinrobe is a vibrant town and we can handle all these things quite well. It’s down to the funding,” he said.

“But Ballinrobe is a vibrant town. It was painted over the weekend as a desperate and derelict town, which is absolutely isn’t. Some person said on the protest that there was massive unemployment, that there was no employment in the town at all. We’re at full employment and it’s wrong that people come in and taint a town like that over a weekend.”

Mr Keane said that local people were seen as ‘collateral damage’ as a result of the short notice regarding the initial proposal, which he said ‘fuelled’ protests over the weekend.

“A lot has happened over the weekend, and we will learn a lot from it obviously. The biggest thing is the lack of information, the lack of timely information and the lack of transparency,” he said.

“We’re in a small town. If you put 50 people into Ballinrobe, everyone knows everyone, it’s no comparison to putting 50 people into the middle of Dublin where they wouldn’t be noticed. It’s a totally different comparison. People have to think of this when they are in high office when they are making their policies and procedures and putting them in place.

“We were seen as collateral damage over the weekend because of the policies that people were adhering to,” he added.

A small number of people waited outside the front of the hotel on Monday night despite the protest being disbanded earlier that afternoon.

A Facebook page with over 2,400 followers called ‘Ballinrobe Says No’, which was used to organise the protests, has also been removed for the social media platform.