The minister for Justice Alan Shatter has deferred closure of Galway’s largest asylum-seeker accommodation centre until he has reviewed the reason for the decision.

His dept has told today’s Irish Times that no transfers of up to 270 asylum seekers and their families will take place, pending the outcome of the Minister’s review.

Last week the residents of a Lisburn House, formerly the Ibis Hotel, were told of the closure of the facility after many of their children had already started a new school term.

Several protests have taken place this week outside the hostel in support of the residents.

Labour Galway West TD Derek Nolan had appealed to Mr Shatter to intervene, and had described the timing of the closure as a “terrible way to treat people”.

Minister Shatter said he was “considering the background circumstances relating to the decision to close the Lisburn asylum-seeker accommodation centre in the light of representations received” by him. He said he also had to bear in mind the need for the Reception and Integration Agency, which is responsible for asylum accommodation, to “manage its diminishing budget efficiently in the context of the current critical budgetary situation.”

Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh had been organizing a rally against the closure for this Saturday in Galway. He  has  welcomed Mr Shatter’s decision, and said he had also made representations to the Minister’s department and to the agency. “Unfortunately this latest announcement offers no security of tenure for the residents involved and concluded that the rally will go ahead in Galway’s Eyre Square on Saturday.