The sudden closure of the newly opened Merchant pub and restaurant in Laurence Street and the application by the building’s owners, Proper Innovation Ltd, for change of use to accommodation for international protection seekers has caused much anger and shock in Drogheda coming as it does so soon aftetr the dHotel debacle.
This anger was compounded when it was revealed that the owners of the premises, who have just recently completed a very expensive revamp of the building, have applied for change the use of the building to accommodation for international protection applicants.
The first sign that there was something afoot came last Friday evening when a truck pulled up outside the premises and bar furniture was loaded up and taken away.
Independent Councillor Kevin Callan said the silence from candidates representing government parties on the issue is deafening and a further insult to the town of Drogheda and in particular to those businesses trying to survive and employ people in the town centre area.
“This is another serious blow to our town centre area, we need answers and we are not getting them from anyone representing the Government in this election in this area” he said.
“There are two massive gaps about this situation, the first is that the government are clearly still pursuing tourist beds to convert to IPA accommodation, something the minister said they were going to move away from in Drogheda.
“Secondly, the planning process should have been changed to prevent such changes of use. This continuing to seek out tourist accommodation to be converted by the government is bad enough but not closing the change of use option makes it is even clearer that that is the policy going forward.
Labour TD Ged Nash said that town centres will continue to see hospitality businesses like The Merchant close down and look to be repurposed until such time as Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party build appropriate State-owned accommodation for those seeking international protection in this country.
“Moves such as the one taken by this business on Laurence Street is a direct consequence of government policy alone. It’s as simple as that. The privatisation of the direct provision system is lucrative for commercial interests.
“Ireland’s almost complete reliance on private commercial businesses to provide piecemeal, small-scale accommodation means the business of direct provision has been made financially attractive to the hospitality sector, displacing local jobs and tourism activity.
“As long as this government’s abject failure to grasp the nettle and provide proper human rights-informed accommodation of scale on State land continues, and for as long as the profit-motive exists, hospitality businesses up and down the country will keep making these kinds of business decisions, and all because of a wrong-headed government policy.”
Labour Councillor Emma Cutlip has added her voice to the outcry over the Merchant closure and has lashed out at Government parties who she says are failing Drogheda again.
“When Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party should be developing large state-run accommodation centres informed by a human rights approach to accommodating those seeking protection in Ireland, they choose instead to rely almost exclusively on the hotels, bars and restaurants we need to service our tourism sector and our own local hospitality needs” she said.
“These contracts are so lucrative that businesses are making decisions such as the one made by those who own The Merchant and the D Hotel. Government has created very attractive financial propositions for a small few, without a care as to the impact on people.
“It is very clear who is to blame for yet another blow in a series of knockout punches to the town in recent months. It is not refugees in desperate need of safety, it is Government.
“Local government party representatives need to stop talking out both sides of their mouth on this issue, commenting as though their party have no hand in the legal loopholes that are decimating business in our town.
“In the same breath as lamenting the closure of The Merchant, Government party representatives are suggesting that newly announced government funding for dereliction be used to provide accommodation instead. Playing one government failure off another – the failure to fix direct provision against the failures to invest in Ireland’s largest town which is crumbling to dereliction and vacancy, and attempting to play the people of Drogheda for fools.
“How can a party claim with a straight face to be the self-proclaimed ‘party of business’ when the policies they operate actively incentivise the displacement of hospitality businesses in towns?
“They are the party of business alright. The business of making sure a select few can profit from maintaining the direct provision system where neither taxpayers nor migrants are beneficiaries of this ugly profiteering.”
