Adeola Talabi, who came to the town as an asylum seeker and now lives there. Photo: Brian Farrell

The decision by the Department of Justice on Thursday to pause plans to house 130 asylum seekers in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, pending further consultation has left the people in the town at least feeling their concerns will now be listened to by the Government.

Since Monday morning the community has been picketing an apartment complex earmarked as the new home for people who have been forced to flee war, persecution, famine and abject poverty.

The spokespeople for the community have said repeatedly they are not against the accommodation of asylum seekers but concerned the small rural town does not have the infrastructure to cater for an unprecedented 15pc rise in its population.

They have also expressed fears the apartment complex could become an over-crowded prison for its new residents and that already under-pressure public services, especially education and health, will be overwhelmed.

More than half of the 900-strong local population turned out at a crisis meeting last Sunday night to unanimously endorse taking action, with the anger focused on the Department of Justice for not consulting with them in the first place.

No one in Ballinamore has said they have a problem with asylum seekers coming to the town or that they do not want them - they say they want a number that is proportionate to the size of their community.

The decision by the Minister of State for Integration David Stanton to pause the plans suggests he and his officials now realise the people of towns like Ballinamore actually have a point, that 130 people is simply too many and unworkable.

It is expected the re-settlement programme will proceed but with a reduced number of people being accommodated and they will be warmly welcomed by the community.

Time for full disclosure here: I know this because I am from Ballinamore and very proud to be so. I know the people intimately: they are neighbours, friends and relations who I have known all my life.

Its simple slogan has always been the 'Friendly Town', something its people, who are warm, welcoming and inclusive, live up to.

And one thing I can say in their defence is that they are not racist or xenophobic: rather their protest is aimed at the ham-fisted manner the asylum seeker accommodation is handled.

The town already has a proud track record when it comes to welcoming and embracing asylum seekers and victims of injustice in other lands, when the town hosted a direct provision centre for almost a decade.

One of them is Adeola Talabi, a Nigerian mother of three who first came to the Co Leitrim town as an asylum-seeker and now lives there as a proud member of the community.

She told me this week: "I and my family are very much part of this town and we stayed here because the people of Ballinamore are very welcoming, accommodating and very, very supportive. It is indeed the friendly town and I can say I have never encountered any type of racism or xenophobia.

"They are beautiful people but a town of this size just cannot cope with the numbers being proposed."

As we have seen in other rural towns, the information vacuum created by the Department of Justice inevitably gives rise to unnecessary fear, anger and resentment which only feeds into the hands of alt-right parasites and hate-mongers.

What has happened in Ballinamore and other communities may be a harbinger of a winter of discontent ahead as protests like these could easily become the norm unless the architects of the botched direct provision system go back to the drawing board.

Public representatives and those who implement our direct provision system would be foolish to ignore the sincerity and determination of the ordinary men and women in quiet communities who feel so moved they are prepared to stand out all night, enduring the cold and damp of the approaching winter, to register their protest.

There simply has to be a better way of implementing this policy that respects both the rights of the asylum seekers and the communities concerned.

As a nation of people whose collective history is one of forced migration in the face of famine and persecution, we have a moral responsibility to do our bit to alleviate the torrent of human misery pouring into the EU.

But while it is all well-intentioned, it is the execution of the mission to accommodate the numbers the Government have agreed to take in that is deeply flawed and causing unnecessary social divisions.

The civil servants at the coal face are tasked with finding accommodation and re-settling refugees as efficiently and humanely as possible, so the statistics show the Government is fulfilling its international obligations.

However, that policy imperative obviously supersedes any logical concerns about the social or physical infrastructure for the resettlement of refugees.

All of this could be avoided if a more enlightened approach was taken by Government.

Irish Independent