Suspected arson attack wrecks Irish hotel about to house asylum seekers

A suspected arson attack has wrecked a hotel in County Galway that was being prepared to host 70 asylum seekers, in the latest sign of a backlash against refugees in Ireland.

The Irish government on Monday condemned the burning of the Ross Lake House hotel in Rosscahill as a sinister attempt at intimidation.

However, two councillors from the ruling Fianna Fáil party said government policy had inundated Ireland with refugees and driven people to take drastic action – a view once confined to fringe far-right groups.

Protesters picketed at the disused hotel on Saturday, replicating a tactic that has blocked other attempts to settle refugees around Ireland. At 11.35pm a blaze broke out at the rear of the hotel and engulfed the property before fire services extinguished the flames. Nobody was inside the hotel or injured. Seventy male asylum seekers were to have moved there on Thursday.

Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach, said there was no justification for violence, arson or vandalism. The minister for integration, Roderic O’Gorman, said the blaze was “deeply sinister” and dangerous. “It was designed to intimidate people seeking international protection here in Ireland,” he told RTÉ.

An increase in refugee numbers in recent years has coincided with a housing crisis and fuelled hostility to asylum seekers, especially males. Sporadic arson attacks have targeted accommodation centres, and protests with placards saying “Ireland is full” have blocked roads. In September, a raucous rally outside the Dáil briefly trapped lawmakers.

A knife attack that injured three children and a carer triggered a riot in central Dublin last month after the attacker, a naturalised Irish citizen, was identified as originally coming from Algeria.

The government coalition, comprised of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens, and opposition parties have said Ireland has a duty to welcome and accommodate refugees.

However, some ruling party backbenchers and independent rural lawmakers have expressed misgivings and two Fianna Fáil councillors from Galway went further after the hotel fire.

“If it was a criminal act; what made that criminal act happen? It was the senseless policy of the government,” Séamus Walsh told Galway Bay FM. “If it was done maliciously, it was absolutely the fear for the safety and wellbeing of their families that drove people to this.”

His party colleague Noel Thomas said Ireland was “flooded” with new arrivals and that the government was ignoring concerns. “As long as they continue with their actions the way they are going at the moment, we are only going to see more of this,” he told RTÉ. Thomas attended the protest before the blaze and said it was composed of local people, not “extremists”.

Nick Henderson, the chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, said the wrecking of the hotel was of great concern and the government needed to improve its communication about settling asylum seekers.

Earlier this month the government ran out of accommodation for asylum seekers – it also happened in spring – and offered tents, sleeping bags and extra money to about 200 arrivals who had to find their own lodgings or face sleeping on the streets.

Dozens of anti-immigration candidates are expected to compete in local elections next year. The former mixed martial arts star Conor McGregor has floated a possible run for the presidency on a platform of curbing immigration and crime.