Mick Clifford: In this year of local elections, the far right are on the pig’s back
The Shipwright pub in Ringsend, Dublin: An inaccurate rumour took flight that international protection applicants would be housed there. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins
The year of elections has started as it may well go on.
Last Sunday, a fire gutted a former public house in Ringsend. The premises of the former Shipwright pub was vacant and had been earmarked for occupation by a State agency. An inaccurate rumour took flight that international protection applicants would be housed there.
Dublin’s Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) had intended to use the facility as a hub for families. Local politicians have suggested that had this been known, there might have been no attack on the premises.
We have now reached a point where all State agencies are expected to inform widely if it intends to use a premises in order to, allegedly, alleviate “fears”.
These “fears” have no rational basis and concern foreigners, many if not most of whom, are fleeing war or persecution or were in fear for their lives in their country of origin.
So now, agencies like the DRHE are expected to point out that children who have no homes are moving into the area, highlighting the status of these children and probably stigmatising them. Meanwhile, the message to those who may be fleeing for their lives is that you are not wanted here, go flee somewhere else.
Fuelling this atmosphere are a small but dedicated number of bad actors, from what we call the far right. They spread fears and talking about “men of military age” and “unvetted males” and all sorts of tropes.
In this year of local elections, the far right are on the pig’s back. Most local councillors have re-election to the forefront of their minds and therefore are in no mood to confront irrational fears or to tackle misinformation.
This was obvious last Tuesday in an extraordinary interview on RTÉ’s , given by Danny Byrne, a Fine Gael councillor for the Ringsend area. He told Mary Wilson the Shipwright had been sold last year and people were “apprehensive” about what might happen there.
“There was lots of misinformation, outside influences, people saying that people were coming in from all over and that they’re not vetted and fears were stoked up,” he said.
The presenter asked whether he attempted to quell the fears. “This became a big issue outside of my remit as a local councillor,” Byrne replied.
Asked was a homeless hub more acceptable locally than an accommodation centre for asylum-seekers, he replied: “That’s not for me to say… I very much take my decisions from the electorate, from the local community so I would very much side with the community.”
He did condemn the arson attack but once again referenced the outside influences talking about “unvetted” migrants. Would he use that word, Wilson asked.
“It wasn’t me who came up with that word. People have fears and it’s not for me to say that those fears are unwarranted…I don’t have small children but I do feel for people who have small children,” he said.
As a result primarily of the war in Ukraine, more than 100,000 refugees of one sort or another have entered this State in the last 18 months. There is no record of any heightened danger to children as a result. The huge bulk of danger to any children anywhere comes from within the home or a family’s social or family orbit.
As for the councillor’s reluctance to address head-on the despicable “unvetted” trope, he might want to refer to what his party leader said just before Christmas.
“I think we should have an open and honest debate about migration in this country but it has to be based on facts,” the Taoiseach told reporters. “It has to be based on information. It has to avoid anything that is othering or racist.
"I hear, for example, people talking about asylum-seekers being unvetted. Everybody who comes into the country who claims international protection is photographed, is fingerprinted, is checked against a watchlist. At least until such a time as we can process their application and decide whether they're allowed to stay or not, they should be treated with a minimum degree of dignity and respect. That's what we seek to do. That's what I'd ask people to do."
Just before Christmas, Labour party candidate in Dublin, Carol Reynolds, was filmed being interviewed outside the Shipwright premises in Ringsend, an episode that will probably haunt her in light of what happened two weeks later.
Her interviewer was Gavin Pepper, a figure associated with the far right. The pair discussed the housing of international protection people in the building, for which it was never going to be used. At one point, Pepper says: “They’re not putting Irish homeless in it.” This is precisely what it was going to be used for.
Pepper asked the Labour Party candidate whether she agreed with “open borders and mass migration”.
“I think we have enough, we have too many immigrants here at the moment,” she said. “They’re just coming in because they’re calling us ‘treasure island’.”
Ms Reynolds obviously has difficulty distinguishing between immigrants and asylum-seekers, the former of which are here either by right or invitation, the latter to apply for sanctuary. She did subsequently apologise for her comments, saying she had been “under pressure”.
It is unclear whether it was the “pressure” of an upcoming election which prompted two Fianna Fáil councillors in Galway to let rip in the wake of the arson attack on the Ross Lake Hotel.
“If it was done maliciously, it was absolutely the fear for the safety and wellbeing of their families that drove people to this,” Cllr Seamus Walsh said at the time. He didn’t elaborate on what fears existed and whether they were rooted in evidence or fact, or were actually the product of a hate campaign.
He didn’t make any effort to address the fears, such as they were. Seven months before an election, he just appeared to be pandering to the idea of fears.
Cllr Noel Thomas said “the inn is full”, at a time of year when most of the west celebrates the life of a person who was excluded from the inn. “We have flooded the country at the moment,” Mr Thomas said on Virgin Media. “There’s no regulation on how people are being brought into the country and unfortunately people are just fed up with it.”
This is wholly erroneous, suggesting a policy of some kind of open borders exists. Both councillors are being subjected to an internal inquiry in the party, but it is highly unlikely they are shaking in their boots at the prospect.
Various Sinn Féin councillors have found themselves at variance with their party leadership on this issue. Among them was Aidan Mullins, who contributed to a debate in Laois County Council on housing asylum-seekers in the area. He pitched the plight of those arriving here against that of homeless people.
“Where are we going to house them? But I guarantee you, they will be housed. And then we wonder why somebody comes to say ‘how come there’s an arrangement for people coming into the country, as opposed to people on the housing list’. That’s the reality.”
In fact, the reality is that nobody arriving in the country, even if and when they might be granted asylum, are bumped up the housing list ahead of those already waiting.
It is surprising a politician in a forum where housing dominates would not be aware of that. Of the last nine tweets on Mr Mullins's Twitter feed, eight deal with immigration.
One of those is an unequivocal condemnation of the Dublin riots, but all others express views that would not be expressed by his party’s leadership.
Two of the tweets carry articles from Gript.ie, an online media outlet opposed to immigration policy and one which would ordinarily be alien to what Sinn Féin purports to stand for.
Conversely, Mr Mullins may not be as out of step with his party leadership today as he would have been a month ago.
Just before Christmas Mary Lou McDonald made a number of statements that inferred changes to her party’s position on asylum-seekers, including that Ukrainians should be asked to leave in 2025 if they are not doing work deemed necessary for the economy.
In the broader picture, however, what is definitely emerging in a year of local elections among the main parties is a drift away from the long-held consensus that this country is obliged to welcome those fleeing war and pestilence.
There are exceptions among those seeking re-election, but there is also plenty of evidence that many are, and will be, willing to pander to illogical fears and even compete in turning up the dial of intolerance for the sake of chasing votes, wherever they are to be found.
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