Cavan has been welcoming to migrants - Hyland

Despite small levels of opposition Cavan has been largely welcoming to refugees, according to Terry Hyland, CEO of Cavan County Local Development (CCLD), which delivers several programmes on behalf of the State. Among these is the national Social Inclusion Programme, which aims to provide support to the most disadvantaged people in society including refugees.

“We liaise with Ukrainian refugees and international protection beneficiaries to try to get progression for them in things like English language programmes, access to schools, meeting with GPs, trying to find employment, dealing with accommodation issues and community integration.”

Terry concedes that some people have raised concerns over what they feel is an influx of people arriving into the country, which puts pressure on services, some of which are already struggling to cope.

“The people in Cavan have been very welcoming. We found that, once there is a communication line set up between local communities and people who have arrived into an area, then generally there is a lot of goodwill out there.

"There is a little bit of fatigue coming into it which is understandable. People are worried about the volume of people coming into the country and are afraid that we might get overwhelmed with the volume of people and worry about where we are going to put everybody. They say people are afraid of the pressure being put on public services such GP practices, public health services, and school places.”

Terry says State bodies are trying to work in tandem with local groups to ensure locals are kept up to date.

"We’re trying to deal with their concerns. This is an emergency response. So we’re trying to do things perfectly but we have to respond and make decisions quickly. So that's where the challenges are," he said.

Terry highlights previous cases where refugees were successfully integrated into Cavan communities.

“We delivered the Syrian refugee resettlement programme, which began in 2019 and saw 100 Syrian refugees coming to the county and people were extremely welcoming. We also had a Congolese refugee resettlement programme, about 10 years ago, with similar numbers arriving and they got a very good reception.”

A small minority of people are trying to blame issues such as homelessness on Ukrainian refugees, which Terry says is inaccurate.

“We do have housing and cost of living issues in this country, but they were already there. There is false information that people who come into the country are to blame for that.

For example, Ukrainian refugees are not entitled to social housing, so they're not taking over social housing stock that would be available to other people on the housing list. They're catered for in hospitality accommodation,” he pointed out.

Terry accepts some people also want to see more hotel rooms coming back into tourist use and is hopeful of some movement of people from hotel type accommodation into pledged housing.

The spreading of false information is an issue, according to Terry, particularly on social media.

"Sometimes the only way to deal with fake news, unfortunately, is to say nothing about it and try and deal with it through other means. If we try to counter it, we know we’re going to get 50 responses back from people who are trolling you.”

He also says that social media isn’t the right platform to engage with people on complex social issues due to the lack of accountability.

“Social media can be a dangerous place for trying to debate. I would say that if you’re going to debate the best place to do it is face-to-face through proper conversation and dialogue.

"Anybody can put up a statement and it doesn’t matter if it's true because there’s no way to counter it. There's no consequence for accountability. People say things that they would never say in a group. It’s fine for talking to friends and family but not for dealing with complex issues. Don’t let social media be your advisor. Go through the proper channels to get accurate information."