Bar and guesthouse owner dismisses “untrue” IPAS Centre reports
Reports of the guesthouse becoming an IPAS Centre have been dismissed as being “untrue”. Pic: iStock
The owner of Shine’s Bar & Guesthouse in Baylough near Monksland has described reports of the building becoming an IPAS Centre as “untrue”.
In an online message yesterday evening, the owner said he wanted to clarify two issues “which have recently arisen on social media”.
Firstly, he said any suggestion that Shine’s Bar was closing in order to change from a public house to an IPAS centre was “not true”.
“Shine’s Bar is open and will remain open and will continue to trade as a public house into the future,” he said.
He also said that the suggestion the building was going to be converted into "some kind of refugee centre/IPAS centre” was also “not true”.
Outlining the history of the issue, the owner said that on February 28th 2025, he contacted the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to see if it had an interest in filling four empty rooms in his guesthouse with International Protection Applicants (IPAs).
On February 28th 2025, he submitted the necessary application to the Department seeking to house four families/women and children, but “no single males”, in the four empty rooms in the guesthouse. “I had hoped to get eight, 10 or 12 people,” he said.
He said he received an email on April 16th 2025 from the Department stating that “the IPPS Team will no longer be considering the offered property listed under the title Shine’s Guesthouse, Athlone, County Westmeath for accommodation for International Protection Applicants”.
“There it lies,” he said.
In his online message, the owner also explained “his inability to take single males”.
“I have Ukrainians in the other four rooms in the guesthouse with six children, five under the age of 12 years, and I am not prepared under any circumstances to allow single males in to interact with them,” he said.
Concluding, he said the following points needed to be made:
“The application was prepared with community in mind and with a view to ensuring that there was no threat to the local community which I have been a part of for the last 28 years.
“The rush to protest should not take away from the fact that the business which you protest against is a small family run business on the outskirts of Athlone.
“An application, even if it had been successful, to house up to four families of women and children does not constitute ‘another Lissywollen’,” he said.
