Mary Lou McDonald says Sinn Féin has been 'leaderly' on immigration issue

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald. Picture: Leon Farrell / RollingNews.ie

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said her party’s representatives have been “leaderly” on the issue of migration and in responding to the “pretty shambolic” Government plan.

Asked what would happen if Sinn Féin representatives were to make comments similar to those made by two Fianna Fáil councillors in Co Galway, she replied that there would be a disciplinary process.

“Any commentary that’s made that’s unhelpful, whether that’s done deliberately or otherwise, is something of course that we will address,” she said.

Ms McDonald also said it was “legitimate” for people struggling with housing to ask what happens to them in response to an increase in migration.

“If your child is raising their own child in the box room of your family home on the one hand, and then you hear that others are coming to the country, and you see equally no plan, you see chaos and a shambles, people say ‘Where does that leave me?’ 

She said that this was "not a racist expression."

"That is a human expression of vulnerability and, in some cases, desperation," she told RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland

“[We need[ an integrated plan wherein you do not pitch vulnerable people here who have been waiting and waiting and waiting to get a house and who are very desperate… and others who come from deeply vulnerable positions, for whom the Government equally has no plan and no accommodation. Nobody wins there.” 

The Sinn Féin leader said the Government made a “huge error” in not communicating properly with communities on its plan to house refugees.

“I don’t know anybody who is in favour of open borders – I’m certainly not,” she said. 

We have a rules-based system and you can have a view as to its efficiency, how it’s resourced, how it might change, but you shouldn’t pretend that it doesn’t exist.

“I understand fully that Government made a mistake from the get-go in not having proper consultation and communication with communities, and by that I mean not simply dropping a leaflet or last-minute briefings with public reps, but going into communities and talking to people in community development and youth work and sporting organisations.” 

Ms McDonald said many good people want to be “positive and reasonable and rational and indeed very, very welcoming”, adding that it is “a huge, huge error [by the Government] not to go at that in a proactive way”.

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing the outworking of that now in communities where there is anxiety and angst and a feeling of being disrespected and ignored. For others a feeling of fear, not least for people coming to a strange place having suffered real trauma."

She added that another consequence had been the emboldening of a "very small number of people who believe they can bully everyone else, up to and including setting fire to buildings, which is to be condemned.”

- PA