Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

The Department of Integration is dysfunctional.

DCEDIY, (Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth, to give it its full name), is out of its depth.

And while we must acknowledge its staff are under pressure dealing with new arrivals, DCEDIY has fuelled fears through its unwillingness or inability to communicate to local media.

Last April, Ukrainian families living in Mervue and Ballybrit were told they would get 48 hours’ notice before they were moved to unspecified locations around the country.

They had integrated into the community – local schools, clubs and workplaces – and were living in short-term emergency accommodation under the EU Temporary Protection Directive.

The Department of Integration issued termination notices, effectively disintegrating or breaking up, their established connections in the city’s east side.

There was a reprieve due to a local backlash, but similar scenarios were experienced across Galway communities who had welcomed migrants fleeing the war on Ukraine.

Recently, Gort Welcomes Ukraine highlighted a similar situation to Taoiseach, Simon Harris.

Some 34 Ukrainians were being uprooted from the town’s convent, their home for two years, and relocated elsewhere. Meanwhile, the same Department planned to move 50 other Ukrainians into a different building down the road in Gort. Move families once they’d integrated, and then start all over again with a new group. It made no sense – and so, a reprieve came, following sustained local pressure.

Similar scenarios in An Cheathrú Rua, Woodford, Tuam. It’s a pattern.

Migrants on Dominick Street were getting turfed out of their Direct Provision accommodation at short notice, despite some of them having ‘leave to remain’.

Many of them city workers, they had nowhere else to live, because of a shortage of rental properties. But they were being moved to make room for newer International Protection applicants.

All in the name of ‘consolidation’. All done without so much as a press release.

The Department is busy and under resourced. But it’s a faceless organisation and there appears to be no senior management responsibility.

Initially, when large numbers of migrants fled to this haven from the bombs in Ukraine, the Department promised to improve its communications. It didn’t. Instead, it got worse; became more secretive.

During debate at a recent Tuam Municipal District meeting, when moving migrants was a hot topic, councillors accused the Department of deliberately not informing local media.

They claimed DCEDIY made a conscious decision not to inform councillors of what was happening until after the print deadlines of The Tuam Herald and Connacht Tribune, to keep the public in the dark.

Worse again, Ballinasloe councillors complained they weren’t even told what buildings were being used by DCEDIY, before or after the local papers’ deadlines.

This sleight of hand does the opposite of what was intended. It creates a vacuum where which conspiracy theories and false narratives foment.

Inability to communicate creates mistrust, fear and hate. And that leads to protest and unrest, and allows malign actors to use that instability to whip up anti-immigrant hysteria for their own gain.

Government complains about misinformation and disinformation. But it is the incompetence of its own Department that has fuelled fears and mistrust around migration.