Leo’s St Patrick claim is misleading and will inflame migrant row
WHO knew St Patrick was a single, male, undocumented migrant and not an Romano-british nobleman brought here as a slave?
Well if our Taoiseach is to be believed our history and religious beliefs are all wrong and our Patron Saint was not in fact stolen from his family in what is now Wales.
According to Leo Varadkar St Patrick was not just a migrant to Ireland, he was “a single, male, undocumented one”.
In a speech to the Irish-american community in Boston Mr Varadkar did not elaborate as to whether or not St Patrick disposed of his travel documents like their modern day equivalents before he arrived in the country.
While his speech might have gone down well Stateside his crass and totally misleading analogy will only serve to further infuriate a public who have had their hotels, sporting facilities and even nursing homes converted to asylum seeker centres. So much for learning from the referendum drubbing.
In a desperate attempt to justify his government’s disastrous emigration policies the Taoiseach compared Ireland’s Patron Saint with migrants coming here at the invitation of his inept Children’s Minister.
Unfortunately for the second year running Leo Varadkar has succeeded in becoming something of a national embarrassment on a St Patrick’s Day visit to the US.
Last year he was forced to apologise for an off-colour joke he made about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky’s sexual affair on the eve of President Biden’s visit to Ireland.
Then within hours of his “Paddy the Migrant” speech the Taoiseach was talking from the other side of his mouth as has been the case of many of his government colleagues since the disastrous referendum results.
Apparently he now supports an approach by the European People’s Party, of which Fine Gael is a member, entailing the deportation of asylum seekers to “safe third countries” in North Africa and the Middle East. For over two years those who pointed out the madness of uncontrolled immigration and the government’s open borders policies were branded as right wing extremists.
Now the Taoiseach has finally admitted there is a “very difficult situation now in Ireland” because of “increasing numbers coming over the border from North to South which is an open border”. No open borders, Eh?
What is becoming clear is that Mr
Varadkar and his ministers finally realise they are mired in a mess of their own making by refusing to put a cap on the numbers of asylum seekers.
They also seemingly forget it was Children’s Minister Roderic O’gorman who exacerbated the crisis by all but inviting migrants to Ireland with a tweet in eight different languages promising free healthcare and “own-door” accommodation in the midst of our worst ever housing crisis.
It is also no coincidence it was also Minister O’gorman who was largely responsible for pushing through with the two unwanted referendums which were totally rejected by voters last weekend.
The backlash against what the public saw as the hidden agendas of this Coalition of chaos can also been seen in the overwhelming rejection of both referendums – over 90% against in some constituencies. The sheer scale of the defeat also translates to a total lack of trust in the Government and the political system as all the parties, with notable exception of Aontu which campaigned for a No vote, backed the referendums.
In doing so they have done their prospects at the elections in June irreparable damage, especially Sinn Fein which is at odds with its core support on many issues, especially emigration.
In the aftermath of the referendums Independent TD Catherine Connolly told RTE’S Prime Time that it will now be even harder to trust politicians.
She said: “The whole issue of truth and trust is now really difficult. How can we believe anything from a government? This is a serious consequence from this referendum.”
The reality is we can’t and in the immortal words of Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott “Don’t Believe a Word”.
They finally realised they are mired in a mess of their own making