Around 100 local residents in Stradbally Co Laois held a meeting yesterday evening about housing hundreds of Ukrainian refugees in tents on the estate of Stradbally Hall.
A group of 25 women and children were the first to arrive to tents on the site yesterday.
The meeting was attended by the owner of the estate Thomas Cosby.
One of the organisers of yesterday evening's meeting, Louise Buggy, said it was held in response to issues raised by residents including concerns around the number of people to be accommodated - up to 750 people, the lack of consultation about the project, the short notice given and the lack of information available.
"It was announced on the Friday of the (Electric) Picnic when nobody had a chance to respond and everything was rushed," Ms Buggy said.
She said that while the "community welcomes all refugees that are seeking sanctuary"... "the camp holds a capacity the equivalent of half the population of the parish, so that's a substantial amount of people... it's a small village, there is one local guard, our fire station is already under-resourced... there are concerns that I think need to be addressed."
The contract is for six weeks, but Ms Buggy said concerns had also been raised about what would happen after the six weeks elapsed.
"After the six weeks were up, if those people weren't housed then where would they go, are they going to be left out on the streets, there are no guarantees of housing, we are in a housing crisis," Ms Buggy said.
She added that there was also "a lot of misinformation on social media, because there was no information being provided by the powers, by any Government body," adding that "no information led to misinformation".
It is understood that there were frank exchanges during the meeting which was fraught at times.
Read more: Govt to use EP tents for Ukrainian refugees next week
Ms Buggy said she was not sure that everyone was fully reassured leaving the meeting but it had been agreed to set up a committee "to address these issues and concerns" and another meeting would be held next week.
Mr Cosby acknowledged that "community engagement fell off the bottom of the list".
"We've been concentrating on getting this built," he said.
He said that he was approached about it two weeks ago, and the agreement was only signed "last Thursday" the day before the Electric Picnic took place on the estate.
"People are angry that they haven't been consulted... yes there is a certain amount of fear of obviously a lot of people coming into a community," Ms Cosby said.
"Luckily after the meeting things are much more transparent, people are much more willing to help," he added.
"It's a very short-term thing, this is an emergency situation, and we've responded to it," Mr Cosby said.
The Government has confirmed that it expects that tented accommodation will become "the primary source of accommodation" for newly arriving Ukrainian refugees from next week, due to a current shortage of available alternative accommodation.
However a spokesperson for the Department of Children, Equality, Integration, Disability and Youth said accommodation at the Stradbally site was "for very short-term use".
Mayor of Laois Paschal McEvoy said that "communication is everything in this kind of a situation" adding that "people are genuinely worried and rightly so".
Mr McEvoy said it was explained to the meeting that groups would be moved on after two weeks and would be replaced by other groups who would be similarly moved through the system.
However Mr McEvoy said "in six weeks' time temperatures will be seriously low" and he said that accommodating children between the ages of four and 16 in tents after that point would be "inhumane".
"The Government will need to up their game and get somewhere for them," he said.
