Caiseal Mara Hotel On Fire Last Night Before Asylum Seekers Arrive
Caiseal Mara Hotel Fire
Smoke billowed out from the Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville last night just a week or so before the first batch of Asylum Seekers from Georgia, Albania, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo are due to arrive.
The Caiseal Mara won a competitive tender to take 100 or so Asylum Seekers.
Not much is known so far as to how it started but the guards in Buncrana are asking for information from anybody who may have seen what happened.
Caiseal Mara Hotel Damaged
It seems that there is a lot of damage to the hotel premises.
It is not know yet if it will be ready for the first batch of 20 to 30 Asylum Seekers who are due to arrive in the first week of December.
Mixed Views on Asylum Seekers
People in Moville had mixed views about the Asylum Seekers with some dead set against it and others seeing it as a wonderful opportunity to help people who have gone through very hard times in their own countries.
However, even among people who are happy to accept them, there is a view that firstly, 100 is too many for a town of 1,480 people to absorb.
Secondly, there is suspicion about the secrecy in which it was all conducted with local schools, the doctors surgery and local politicians only hearing about it 3 to 4 weeks before the Asylum Seekers were due to arrive – far too late to get any extra resources to cope with the extra numbers.
They told people at a meeting a couple of weeks ago that there would be no extra resources allocated for health or education in the town and the schools and surgery would have to apply for extra resources in the normal way.
However, that certainly can’t happen in the two to three weeks’ notice that they got.