Migration, the one word that will dominate this fateful political year
AFTER some time at home over the Christmas break, TDs will return to Leinster House this week with one item firmly planted in their minds by their constituents – immigration.
Ireland has long avoided a toxic debate on the issue that has obsessed our allies in the US, UK and Europe, manifesting itself in various guises such as Donald Trump, Marie Le Pen and Brexit.
But now the topic is on the lips of people in every pocket of the country.
Today, an Irish Daily Mail poll reveals more than half of us disapprove of the Government’s handling of migration, and even more (73%) say too many people have arrived seeking refuge on these shores.
It has become a central election issue as the State’s asylum process shakes and risks buckling entirely.
Last night the State could not provide accommodation to 562 asylum seekers with freezing temperatures set to remain throughout the weekend. Make no mistake; the situation is very bad and getting worse.
Expect more Dáil speaking time to be devoted to the problem and anti-immigration rhetoric to ratchet up.
It is a complex and delicate issue to discuss, further complicated by a persistent swath of misinformation pushed by anti-immigration agitators propagating deliberate untruths about the consequences of immigration.
These untruths range from farfetched conspiracy theories to bare-faced racism.
Amidst all that is the reality that, as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said, while there isn’t a limit to our compassion there is to our capacity.
There are legitimate concerns, and it should be no surprise to see anger from people who have endured a housing crisis their entire lives who suddenly see a rush to convert vacant properties for asylum seeker accommodation.
The Government has failed to get their message across – that they believe the State’s response has been the correct one.
One Fianna Fáil TD I contacted this week to discuss the issue responded by saying ‘I’ll talk to you about anything else, just not this,’ illustrating how toxic the debate has become.
THE Irish Daily Mail has learned that there have been at least two calls at Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meetings in recent months to have a specific meeting on immigration.
This hasn’t been given the go-ahead.
Speaking to the Mail, Fianna Fáil grandee and TD for Galway West, Eamon Ó Cuív, said it is time the party held a debate on immigration.
‘I think Fianna Fáil need a strong internal debate to see where the right balance is,’ he said.
Calling for a debate on migration can be viewed as a veiled way of opposing it, but in Mr Ó Cuív’s case Fianna Fáil TDs could benefit from his wisdom.
If you can’t have a debate within your own party, how are you supposed to have one with the public?
Mr Ó Cuiv has been engaging with asylum seekers for decades and has carefully considered the problems, and Government failings.
‘Obviously there are challenges, but we have to communicate the balance in the policy we’re trying to peruse, taking into account our international obligations, but I have ultimate faith in the fairness and good judgement and compassion of the Irish people at large, nothing that has happened in the last two months has shaken that belief,’ he said.
There is plenty that could have shaken it. Last month the Ross Lake House Hotel in Rosscahill, in his Galway West constituency, was set alight in an arson attack after male asylum seekers were planned to move into it.
Two Fianna Fáil councillors, Cllr Seamus Walsh and Noel Thomas, are facing an internal disciplinary process and potential expulsion from the party for blaming the Government’s migration policy for the criminal attack.
Within the parliamentary party Mr Ó Cuív insists colleagues should have been able to voice concerns they have about aspects of the State’s response.
Concerns such as the initial rate of entitlements to Ukrainians, which he says ‘left them better off’ than Irish people, and similarly pointing out that the reduction to €38 a week ‘isn’t enough’.
His party colleague and TD for Tipperary Jackie Cahill will bring a different view to the discussion, saying he understands fears about single male asylum seekers.
‘There needs to be discussion [on immigration], if you put 60 young fellas, whatever creed, colour or class in a confined space they’re bound to get up to mischief. To think we can put 60 people coming in, if they were from Thurles, Carrick-on-Suir, wherever, 60 young males in a confined space and not expecting them to get up to mischief is expecting a miracle.
‘When you do that in a small town, it’s bound to cause anxiety... it’s a recipe for disaster,’ he said.
Mr Cahill accepted, when highlighted by this newspaper, that there is no criminal data showing asylum seeker men are likely to be involved in crime.
However, another Fianna Fáil TD illustrated that big groups of men being placed into small towns was a difficulty they were struggling to overcome.
People ask what the men will do all day, and it’s difficult to give a cohesive answer, they explained.
Mr Cahill told the Mail that the criteria [set in international law] for asylum seekers needs to change and that they should ‘have the ability to financially support themselves’.
‘Migration is here to stay, climate change playing a part in that as well, other parts of the world not able to sustain their own population. [We] need to make sure it’s dealt with correctly.’
It’s not just new arrivals where the criteria needs to be stricter in
Mr Cahill’s view. When the Temporary Protection Order for Ukrainian refugees ends in March next year Mr Cahill believes they should not automatically have the right to stay.
‘I think they’ll have to apply to stay and [we’ll] assess if they’re working and economically selfsufficient. You can’t just change their refugee status so that they can stay without that,’ he said.
The view isn’t party policy, but it recently became Sinn Féin’s.
In an interview with the Mail last month party leader Mary Lou McDonald suggested that only Ukrainians in ‘critical skill’ jobs should automatically be allowed to stay.
Mr Varadkar said this week in Kosovo that he didn’t envisage sending Ukrainians back to their home country while the war is ongoing; the prospect of the war not being over didn’t get mentioned by Ms McDonald or Mr Cahill.
Ms McDonald also accused the Government of pitting refugees against people who are already living here for scarce resources in health and housing.
IT’S an indication that her line of attack this Dáil term will be to merge those twin crises with immigration in a bid not to alienate the left-wing faction of her voter base.
The shift from Sinn Féin is significant, as this newspaper has already highlighted, they are gambling on capturing the anti-immigration vote brewing in sections of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael voters.
A small, now growing, number of Independent TDs had previously been the only anti-immigration voice in the Dáil.
At the same time support for Independents continued to grow in the opinion polls, as did the importance of the subject to the electorate.
Politicians move with the mood of the general public, their jobs often depend on it. The sudden scramble in position from the bulk of the political class shows their level of concern that they are not keeping pace with the public mood.
Potentially a fatal misstep in a year of numerous elections.
Mr Cahill’s comments, at odds with his party’s, illustrate the pressure rural TDs are facing on the issue, and an indication they will not toe the party line.
‘What Fianna Fáil are saying locally, and what [Fianna Fáil leader and Tánaiste] Micheál Martin are saying publicly do not match up,’ noted a Government source this week.
The current system will collapse unless something seismic happens; that is what makes the European Council summit at the end of March so significant.
If ratified, which it is expected to be, the EU’s migration pact will see greater burden-sharing across Member States.
Crucially, there is a ‘solidarity mechanism’ to relocate migrants to another Member State in crisis situations.
‘It’s significant,’ acknowledged one minister privately this week, but just how much it can be leveraged will be crucial.
We are in a crisis situation now. There are potentially fatal consequences unless there is a drastic intervention.
The scale of the problem is beyond what anyone in the country could have imagined prior to the war in Ukraine.