‘The town can take no more’ – Roscommon senator tells locals they are not racist for resisting refugees

Former TD Eugene Murphy was at a meeting of 150 people in Spell’s pub in Ballaghadereen over proposals to build 47 modular homes off the Circular Road.

“I’m not going to allow this to happen, and I will stand with you,” Mr Murphy told the meeting in footage posted to X.

“You’re not being one bit wrong, or one bit racist, in saying we’ve had enough,” said Senator Murphy, microphone in hand.

“We cannot take any more.”

He told the Irish Independent that Ballaghadereen had taken “several hundred” people over the last seven years, but didn’t even have a 24-hour Garda station — with a 28pc unemployment rate.

He said local GPs and nurses were unable to cope with the demand for services, and said he had raised the need to allocate resources with his party leader, Micheál Martin.

“Common sense has to come in here. Ballaghadereen has probably taken proportionately the most of any town in Ireland,” he said.

“The town can take no more, and has been very welcoming. There was no-one last night trying to push people out.”

Now there was a proposal “gone to the county manager for three new locations,” he said, in Boyle, Roscommon town and Ballaghadereen, and it was being suggested that 200 more would be coming to the latter.

He said he had raised the issue repeatedly at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, when senior politicians were previously suggesting that other towns could take a leaf out of Ballaghadereen’s book by being more welcoming.

The Senator said he did not know he was being filmed last night, but he had “told the truth”.

The town’s population had gone up by 30pc in the past few years, but there had been no improvement in facilities or infrastructure.

He said he was "calling a spade a spade”.

In the video Senator Murphy says that schools locally are over capacity and he calls for a 24-hour Garda station. “It is absolutely 100pc right in everybody’s mind to say no, we cannot take any more,” he said.

He added: “You cannot take any more people. I’m not going to allow this to happen. It cannot be allowed to continue, and I cannot be any more honest.

“90pc of people are right, and you should not feel in any way guilty about it,” he said.

Fianna Fáil has been contacted for comment.