One councillor has claimed that her constituents have been left “afraid to walk the streets” after an influx of asylum seekers into her town, where migrants now reportedly make up over one-fifth of the population.
A number of Councillors in the Irish town of Killarney have warned that people are living in fear as a result of a recent influx of migrants into the area.
With over one-fifth of the town’s population now being migrants, the surge mirrors a nationwide increase in the number of non-Ukrainian asylum seekers in Ireland.
Such arrivals have likely been boosted by the open borders policies of the country’s government, with Ireland’s Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, earlier this year implementing a near-blanket amnesty for illegal migrants already living on the island.
According to a report by local paper the Killarney Advertiser, the number of migrants in the town has “increased dramatically in recent weeks due to the Government’s commitment to house an uncapped number of refugees”.
Overall, more than 3,200 asylum seekers are said to be in the town, which — before the influx — only had a population of 10,360 people
Various people from inside the town have since reportedly contacted the paper saying that they are concerned regarding their own safety in the wake of the arrivals, with the publication describing them as “living in fear”.
“I know for a fact that there are people actually afraid to walk the streets or walk down along the road,” local Councillor Marie Moloney is reported as saying during a Killarney Municipal District meeting earlier this week.
“I’m not being dramatic,” she reportedly continued. “I’m telling you the truth.”
Another councillor, Donal Grady, meanwhile told the publication that “they [the migrants] are the ones causing all the trouble”.
“They are not respecting our town,” he said. “There are people afraid to walk down the Park Road.”
Meanwhile, unverified footage posted online earlier this week is reported to show men — who are believed to be asylum seekers — abusing a woman on the street in the town.
When confronted by passersby on his behaviour, the man appears to try and get the person intervening to fight him.
Issues reportedly being experienced in Killarney come as authorities in Ireland make concerted efforts to loosen border restrictions on the island.
While working on getting hate speech laws passed in the country, Ireland’s Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, pushed through a near-blanket migrant amnesty allowing illegals in the country to gain permanent residency status.
Such an amnesty was made available to many migrants who even had a criminal record, with any accepted by the programme not only being granted permission to stay in the country, but being put on the pathway to gaining Irish citizenship.
The “soft touch” approach has since resulted in huge numbers of non-Ukrainian migrants claiming asylum in Ireland, with the state now struggling to house genuine Ukrainian refugees as a result of the large number of arrivals from various nations ranging from Albania and Nigeria, neither of which are active conflict zones.
Ireland’s handling of the crisis has been so poor that it has even attracted the attention of politicians abroad, with the country’s Prime Minister being chastised in the European Parliament this year for the country’s lax border policies.
“Do you think that mass amnesties for illegal migrants by EU member states is going to alleviate or worsen migration pressure on Europe?” Charlie Weimers asked the premier, telling Breitbart that the country could end up turning into a “migration Mecca” that would worsen the entire bloc’s illegal migrant problems.