Another site earmarked to house migrants has been set on fire in Ireland. The site in Co. Wicklow was proposed to accommodate International Protection Applications, the term given to migrants by the Irish government.
The attack took place in the early hours of Saturday morning, and is being investigated by the Gardaí as a deliberate act of criminal damage.
Ireland’s Department of Integration had said it was considering locating 20 eight-person tents on the site, but the plan had not been finalised.
Local residents have voiced concerns about the use of the site, including a lack of consultation with the government, and there have been ongoing protests at the site.
The fire is not the first to occur at a site for housing migrants.
Back in February, Prime Time Ireland, a branch of RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, reported that there had been at least 23 suspected arson attacks at sites linked, or rumoured to be linked, to the housing of migrants in the country.
“In recent months, there has been a marked increase in such attacks,” the report noted. “Across 2023 there were at least 13 incidents, but 10 of the 23 total incidents have occurred in the three months since November.
Documented Fires at Migrant Housing Sites in Ireland, Image: RTE
“So far in 2024, there have been four fires reported at properties that were linked to housing people who are officially categorised as international protection applications (IPAs) or beneficiaries of temporary protection (BOTPs).”
In recent years, Ireland’s population has increased dramatically as a result of mass immigration. Between April 2022 and April 2023, the population increased by 2%, as just over 140,000 migrants entered the country. This would equate to 7 million people entering the US in a single year.
More migrants entered the country than during the 2016 Migrant Crisis.
The figure is the highest for two decades, and was only surpassed in Irish history by migration during the so-called “Celtic Tiger” boom at the turn of the millennium.
Unsurprisingly, this massive wave of migration is causing significant tensions with the native Irish.
Crime has soared, with murders doubling.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for 2023, up to the end of June, show that there were 71 killings (murders and manslaughter) in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same six-month period in 2022, an increase of 31 percent. Murders accounted for 47 of these killings, while in the same period the year before they were only 24.
There were also 410 more robbery, extortion and hijacking cases, making a total of 2,328 such incidents this year, or a 21 percent increase.
?#BREAKING: Riots are breaking out after five people including three children injured in knife attack⁰⁰?#Dublin | #Ireland
Currently, multiple riots have broken out in Dublin, Ireland, leaving thousands of people angry after an immigrant, believed to be Algerian, carried out… pic.twitter.com/qx6W2KDvV0
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 23, 2023
Anger at migration has boiled over into open violence on the streets. Riots took place in Dublin last year after a stabbing attack in which a migrant stabbed children at a primary school.
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