Failed asylum seeker Ellie Kisyombe has agreed to accept an adult caution for assaulting a Ukrainian kitchen assistant in 2019.

Introduced in 2006 to allow for the issuing of cautions where prosecution of an adult is not in the public interest in the opinion of a Garda superintendent, the caution will require Kisyombe to accept responsibility for her behaviour, but it will not be disclosed in any garda vetting report.

Last Thursday at Blanchardstown District Court, Kisyombe’s barrister said that while his client had previously pleaded not guilty, she was now willing to accept a caution that had been previously proffered by the State after reviewing CCTV of the assault in evidence and consulting with Kisyombe.

Kisyombe rose to prominence as a campaigner against the "racist" direct provision system which she spent ten years in while appealing her rejected asylum application. She was ultimately granted Leave To Remain in 2019 and has been back to Malawi twice on holiday (the country she allegedly fled in fear of persecution from) since securing a home here.

While appealing her rejected asylum application, she told authorities that she feared being returned to Malawi — "Anything can happen to me. I can get killed, life will not be the same. There is no family there, it's just hard. There is no one to protect," but when she visited Malawi on holiday, she posted pictures of her nana and her family on facebook.

When she ran as a Dublin election candidate in 2019 for the Social Democrats, it emerged that she had broken the asylum regulations twice by travelling to the UK while her application was being processed. Lawyers for Kisyombe tried to prevent publication of the story, by claiming it was a criminal offence to reveal details of her asylum claim.

Kisyombe was invited to be a guest speaker at the annual human rights conference in 2019 by the President of Law Society Of Ireland. She also featured in a number of TV and newspaper interviews and in a music video for Hozier because of her campaigning, and her face has been projected onto the GPO. She also won the Women's Way Mum Of The Year award last year.

The woman assaulted by Kisyombe is Svitlana Voloshchuk, a 46-year-old mother of three from Ukraine who has lived here for 20 years.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent after the hearing, Voloshchuk — who is now a managerial assistant — said she had never experienced anything like the physical assault from Kisyombe in her 12 years working as the Balseskin reception centre for asylum seekers.

She said she felt scared again of Kisyombe after seeing her in court, and did not understand what the caution process — which is supposed to take the views of victims into account — meant.

“I feel like she has been playing some game,” said Voloshchuk.

The Ukrainian mother of three said she believed the Kisyombe portrayed in many media appearances is “fake”.

“I feel when I see that, that it’s all fake, it’s not real,” she said. “Some people can play that game. but I can’t.

"She’s a fake person who starts crying and turns around and starts blaming someone, until someone believes her. On that day she started blaming me, saying it’s my fault. I do not believe a person who just turns like that, starts crying, blames me and then says: ‘Poor me.’

After the case, Kisyombe posted a quote from Nelson Mandela on Twitter about triumphing over one’s fears. An accompanying statement said she was fighting “powerful people”.

🔗 independent.ie

Mullingar Says No protesters refused to be intimidated by the Public Order Unit who abandoned their attempt to break up their peaceful protest outside the gates of Columb Barracks last night.

It comes after Minister Roderic O'Gorman's Department of Integration condemned the ongoing protest at Columb Barracks and said they were liaising with An Garda Síochána.

“Over the past year, communities across Ireland have demonstrated great solidarity and welcome to those who have come here seeking refuge. The Department strongly condemns any attempt to promote division and hostility,” the statement read.

If there are so many communities all across Ireland who wish to accommodate these asylum seekers, wouldn't the best solution be to hold public votes and only accommodate the asylum seekers in the locations where the locals want them?

🔗 facebook.com | facebook.com | twitter.com

A man, aged in his 30s, has been hospitalised after he was stabbed in an incident outside the Courtown Hotel in Wexford where international protection applicants are being accommodated.

A garda spokesperson told BreakingNews: "On Saturday, 25th March 2023 at approximately 2:30pm, Gardaí were alerted after a man was injured in the course of an incident outside a premises in Courtown, Co Wexford. The man, who understood to be in his 30s, was taken from the scene by Ambulance to St Vincent’s Hospital. His injures are not thought to be life threatening. Enquiries are ongoing. We have no further information at this time."

🔗 breakingnews.ie

🚨 A mother traveling on a train from Heuston Station to Tullamore with her five children says a foreign man started talking them and asked her son to sit next to him.

The mother intervened and warned her son not to move, but then the man began taking pictures of her children. When confronted, he disappeared to another part of the train.

As the mother prepared to disembark with her children at Tullamore, a foreign woman got in her way and started asking about the kids, touching one of her sons. When the mother asked the woman to move, she grabbed her son's arm in what the mother believed was an abduction attempt. The mother told her to let go and tried to alert security but there was none.

The woman then walked off, talking to someone on an earpiece, which the mother believes may have been the man she had previously confronted.

This incident bears similarities to one that occurred in Thurles last December, where a foreign woman allegedly attempted to abduct a child from a bus stop.

🔗 facebook.com

State-funded male migrant appears to make death threat gesture to #Mullingar women protesters, as if he wants to cut their throats.