Sewage problems among issues at Dublin site earmarked international protection applicants

Last week, the Minister for Justice told locals that she has transferred five acres of land at the 150-acre farm to the Department of Integration with a view to providing tented accommodation on site, with a further 25 acres to follow sometime in the near future for the provision of modular housing.

However, residents claim they have not been receiving answers to questions regarding the suitability, or indeed the legality, of using Thornton Hall for refugee accommodation.

It is understood the site will eventually be used to accommodate a maximum of 1,000 asylum seekers in tented accommodation.

The department has said that the farm area will be used to accommodate adult male asylum seekers only, while a “sufficient number of toilet and shower blocks” will be provided.

“Capacity will be determined closer to the time the site is available,” the department told local representatives at the end of May.

Under questioning from residents regarding whether or not any sewage connection is in place on the site, representatives from the department were unable to say, though it has been clarified that the farm will not be operational before the end of June.

Residents are also concerned that the site will require retention planning permission given Thornton Hall is a listed building, as opposed to the HSE sites at Crooksling and Newtownmountkennedy which were recently used for emergency accommodation for asylum seekers.

In July 2022, however, the Department of Justice, in compiling a list of all sites in the State on which a prison was either situated or planned, stated that Thornton Hall had “water service only, no sewage connection”.

That was also the case in 2015 when a valuation report prepared for the Irish Prison Service noted that “it is assumed that all services are available to each site with the exception of Thornton Hall which has no sewage connection”.

“Without such a connection, the waste needs of the 1,000 residents would have to be serviced by portaloos and eco showers. So much for a serviced site,” one local resident told the Irish Examiner.

Queried about the lack of a mains sewage connection and how that would be mitigated, and the potential need for planning permission at the site, a spokesperson for the Department of Integration said that “assessment of the site regarding its use is ongoing”.

“No further update is available at this time,” they said.

Thornton Hall was first purchased by the State in 2005 for €30m with a view to building a new prison there to relieve accommodation pressures at Mountjoy Prison.

However, that project was eventually scrapped in the wake of the economic crash, although it’s believed that the Department of Justice is still planning for the construction of a new prison on the site in the foreseeable future.

The site was estimated as being worth just €2.7m in 2020, although the Department of Justice said a more detailed 2022 valuation had determined the real value of the site as being €6.5m.