TD told: Don’t bring Ashling death into the migrant debate
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has criticised Independent TD Marian Harkin for linking the murder of Ashling Murphy to concerns around immigration.
During Leaders’ Questions Ms Harkin, a TD for Sligo-Leitrim, called for a ‘warts and all’ debate around ‘concerns’ about male asylum seekers. Schoolteacher Ms Murphy, 23, was murdered by Jozef Puska, 33, a native of Slovakia, in January 2022.
Ms Murphy’s boyfriend, Ryan Casey, questioned how ‘can someone come to this country, get social housing, social welfare, not hold down a job of any description and never contribute to society for 10 years?’
Mr Puska was not an asylum seeker and travelled to Ireland due to the freedom of movement granted to EU citizens.
Ms Harkin said that in the aftermath of the murder women, including female TDs, spoke about not feeling safe. .
‘Why do we not at least entertain those statements from women now when they say that the idea of 30, 40, 50, whatever, single asylum seekers arriving in their town or village, living three or four to a room, no family connections, nothing to do most of the time – why do we not take on those concerns as genuine?’ she said.
Ms Harkin said there is ‘no racism involved here’ but that ‘this heightened concern is real’ and asked the Taoiseach to ‘listen, to engage and to believe’.
Mr Varadkar responded by saying he was ‘quite disappointed’ with the question and said that ‘sadly, people from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of genders, races, religions and colours commit crimes.
‘To conflate crime and violence against women, in particular, with migration is profoundly wrong and profoundly dangerous,’ he said.