A homeless grandmother in Eire has been sentenced to 16 weeks behind bars for getting into a lodge housing Ukrainian refugees and shouting that they had been “rapists and criminals.” The lady had sought lodging, however was advised no rooms had been obtainable.

Margaret Buttimer appeared earlier than a district courtroom in Bandon, County Cork on Thursday, the place police advised the decide that they had been referred to as to a disturbance at a lodge within the city in late January. 

They discovered Buttimer shouting within the reception space, recalling that “she wished to know what number of Ukrainian nationals had been staying on this lodge, what was the fee to the Irish individuals, and saying ‘these Ukrainians are rapists and criminals’,” in line with a report by the Irish Occasions. 

Police mentioned that she refused to desist and go away the lodge, and so they had “no possibility” however to arrest her.

Buttimer was sentenced to 6 weeks in jail, with half the sentence suspended on the situation that she avoid any facility housing Ukrainian refugees.

The 68-year-old lady has 13 earlier convictions, together with for the same incident on the similar lodge in December. The courtroom heard that she entered the premises and requested workers “why are all of the Ukrainians getting a room and there’s no room for me, an Irish citizen?

Buttimer’s earlier convictions concerned breaches of coronavirus restrictions.

It’s unclear if the lodge in Bandon was housing migrants from different nations along with Ukrainians. Eire took in additional than 70,000 Ukrainian refugees final 12 months and greater than 13,000 migrants from different nations. The arrival of the latter group, the majority of whom are male and hail from the Center East and Africa, has triggered protests within the communities the place they’ve been housed.

The migrant inflow has come amid a document housing scarcity in Eire. Home costs and rents have greater than doubled within the final decade, and in line with the federal government’s most up-to-date figures, there are greater than 8,300 homeless individuals in emergency shelters within the nation.

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