Time for leadership alongside a coherent social strategy

THE scenes we saw this week at the national parliament were both startling and unsurprising. We have warned on these pages previously of the need for the Government to actively engage with a growing far-right sentiment being fed by the Frankenstein’s monster that is an unregulated social media – feeding on a slew of anti-vax rhetoric left over from the pandemic.

We have encouraged our leaders to tackle head-on the legitimate concerns that reasonable members of the public have regarding the sheer volume of refugees the State is required to take. We do not argue that we should not fulfil our international obligations. We have endeavoured to highlight the positive contributions that Ukrainians have made, and are making, in their adopted home over the 18 months since their country was unlawfully invaded by despot Vladimir Putin.

However, we have also done our duty in pointing out the scale of the cost to the State, for both the housing and welfare needs of Ukrainian refugees, which we reveal today will cost an extra €740m on top of last year’s Budget allocation. Expenditure of that magnitude will always lead to questions being asked.

One of the key issues this newspaper has highlighted is the perceived inequity in placing refugees and international protection seekers in rural and suburban areas deprived in socio-economic terms, while better-off parts of the country do not shoulder their side of the burden. We highlight this as a call for general solidarity across all strata of society, which could then be properly leveraged by a joined-up Government policy response.

The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the more likely it is that those who have made Ireland their temporary home will begin to see it as a longer-term option as their children, especially, become embedded in school, sport, and community.

This issue, amongst others, is being used as a recruiting tool for a rise in far-right sentiment and has been used to instigate a distrust of the State which should be protecting the interests of its citizens first and foremost. This manipulation is wrong and insidious and requires a focused response. However, we cannot believe that the non-policing of the siege of Leinster House by Drew Harris’s Garda Síochána should be any part of that considered response. Scenes of a democratically elected TD, Michael Healy-Rae, being abused and called a globalist when he is much more focused on the highways and byways of his constituency, would be farcical if they were not so despicable.

Commissioner Harris’s gardaí on the ground arrested only 13 people for public order offences, when the mock gallows paraded by the thugs was itself a clear and present threat of violence. There are numerous documented assaults of politicians and political staff who were simply trying to go about their business. It is not good enough from the Garda Commissioner. It is not good enough from Justice Minister Helen McEntee.

If they truly believe this is a time for a ‘softly softly’ approach, then we say they are no longer up to the job.

Make no mistake, the grouping behind these scenes is a minority and all reasonably-minded people in Ireland will view these scenes as something they do not wish to see in our modern, inclusive republic. While it has many flaws, average citizens choose to channel their frustrations with the tangible problems – inflation, mortgage interest rates, housing crisis, HSE inefficiency – into peaceful political activism or electoral politics.

In 2024, it is possible that we will have a general election – as well as local and European polls – and this undercurrent of uncivilised demagoguery is very concerning in that context. This nation, when faced with challenges to its innate loyalty to common sense and community, has proven itself to be able to rise to meet its better angels.

But it requires leadership. Not ineptitude.