Labour calls on Government to highlight positives of immigration 

Immigrants from Ukraine, Syria, and India featured in Labour Party’s new 'Together We Thrive' campaign

Labour leader Ivana Bacik condemned what she said was 'dog-whistle rhetoric from government' and that an 'information campaign emphasising the positive benefits of inward migration' is needed. File picture: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland

The Government has been accused of “failing migrants in a disgusting way” and engaging in “far right rhetoric”.

The Labour Party has said the Government must roll out a positive information campaign highlighting the significant role migrants play in Irish society.

Ivana Bacik launched the party’s 'Together We Thrive' campaign on Thursday, which features the real-life story of immigrants to Ireland from Ukraine, Syria, and India.

Ms Bacik said these are the “stories that the Government should be telling” of people who are making an “immense contribution” to the State.

“At a time when we're hearing dog-whistle rhetoric from government, from Simon Harris' leaning into the language being used by the far right, at a time when we're seeing our migrant communities experiencing horrific levels of intimidation, and even racist abuse and violence, that's the time when we need to see Government rolling out an information campaign emphasising the positive benefits of inward migration,” she said.

Labour’s justice spokesman, Alan Kelly, said the Government has “failed relation to this and failed in a very disgusting way”.

“Over the last year or so, the rhetoric coming from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and indeed Sinn Féin in relation to migrants in this country, has been absolutely disgraceful,” he said.

“Migrants in this country, without them, this country would simply stop."

Labour’s Dublin MEP Aodhán Ó Ríordáin also said there has been a “disgusting turn in rhetoric towards the far right.”

“We've seen the Tánaiste engage in it. We've seen him say that there are too many migrants in Ireland,” he added.

Mr Ó Ríordáin also said he asked the Government last year to produce an information campaign on migration, but that it had failed to do so.

The Tánaiste has previously defended his comments suggesting that migration numbers were too high, and that while migration is a “good thing”, 80% of asylum applications are rejected.

He was also criticised for saying a “significant number” of people in emergency accommodation “don’t have a housing right in Ireland”.

In a blog post, Mr Harris said “politicians of the centre cannot shirk the migration debate” and that “dismissing questions or demonising any comment which considers an interplay between migration policy and broader national policy making, limits debate and it doesn’t help devise solutions”.

• Louise Burne, Political Correspondent