After it's been confirmed that two vacant properties in Ballybay are not to be used to house asylum seekers, Sean Gilliland, has called for calm and urges local people to fact-check. The Cathaoirleach of the Ballybay-Clones Municipal District, criticised the disinformation being posted on social media and the misinformation spread by others around the issue. Recently, it was falsely reported online that 58 Main Street, Ballybay and the former Riverdale Hotel were being refurbished to get them ready to house refugees. Councillor Gilliland told the Wider View programme earlier, the information is wrong on both counts.
He said he personally contacted the owners of both premises and the proprietor of the Riverdale said he was carrying out work to use his building for alternative businesses. The Dublin firm who owns the building on Main Street told the Cathaoirleach they are refurbishing their premises to turn it into the company's north-east HQ for their home help business.
Cllr Gilliland warned people about believing everything the read online and asked everyone to check the facts before posting information online. He said because of the recent spate in arson attacks on buildings ear-marked for refugees around the country, one of the business owners is "terrified for his building". Sean Gilliland told people to "fact-check it, take a reality check and try to decipher the information you're reading and, if you're still concerned ask someone who knows and always act within the law" : "There are ways and means of finding those things out: fact-checking," Cllr Gilliland said, "We've seen buildings being damaged and burned around the country. We don't want that in Ballybay and, particularly when we prove very, very fastly (sic) that neither buildings were for to accommodate any sort of such scaremongering that was on social media but they were, in fact, for a brand new business coming to the town centre and the Riverdale Hotel to accommodate the workforce and local people in the town."
