Lack of ‘fair play’ helped to fuel these shameful protests

IN THE same way that we can’t directly blame Helen McEntee or Drew Harris for deaths on our roads, because we’re the ones doing the driving, Roderic O’Gorman is not to blame for the behaviour of some people outside the Racket Hall Hotel in Roscrea this week, as scared asylum seekers in need of a roof over their heads, including a woman carrying a child, arrived at their new ‘home’.

It’s been a long way to Tipperary and these people who now find themselves in Ireland have been through enough. The last thing they needed was to face protesters demonstrating a meanness of spirit they thought they’d left behind them, back there somewhere.

And protesters, wherever they place themselves on the spectrum of opposition to asylum seekers in their communities, need to reflect. Was what happened in Roscrea necessary? Was it right? Is that who they are?

THE increasing opposition to asylum seekers has three main contributing factors – first, a base, hateful and essentially fascist extreme right-wing element that’s growing in confidence; second, a concern among many regular people about a lack of resources in communities where it appears too many new arrivals have been placed; and third, the absence of a clearly defined Government policy on the appropriate distribution of asylum seekers and refugees throughout the country.

Mr O’Gorman and his colleagues in Government, particularly Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Green Leader Eamon Ryan, have failed to form a coherent policy to deal with this crisis. In their panic to find accommodation for about 90,000 plus Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s murderous onslaught, (plus a further 12,300 asylum seekers in the past year alone), they have ignored the key principle of proportionality, a concept better known previously as ‘fair play’. There are now more than 8,800 Ukrainians in Kerry, almost 6% of the entire population of the county, as compared to the 85,000 Ukrainians nationally, about 1.5% of Ireland’s population. Proportionally, therefore, Kerry has accommodated four times more Ukrainian refugees than the average would suggest.

This lack of balance is also reflected elsewhere, for example in Donegal and Mayo, and is entirely the responsibility of the Government, which in fairness has been under the most extraordinary pressure. But that does not excuse the complete absence of a policy based on rational criteria.

Why, for instance, hasn’t there been proper consideration by Mr O’Gorman and his Government colleagues of medical, educational and other resource constraints in towns and villages before refugees or asylum seekers are allocated accommodation there? This failure has understandably annoyed people, with their upset then exaggerated and exploited by far-right, extremist thugs with an agenda of division, hate and violence.

Mr O’Gorman’s cack-handedness further divides already stressed communities from ‘elites’ in highpaid State bureaucracy and politics and feeds a narrative of alienation we now see playing out in the US, with potential for disaster on a grand scale. Are we to go that way as well, with eventually neither side actually talking to the other?

THE immigration issue is now a political landmine as we move towards the next general election, giving multiple opportunities to spoofer politicians to spew ridiculous and dangerous rabblerousing rhetoric in order to win at the polls, like Deputy Mattie McGrath in that Prime Time video clip saying the country was being taken over. There’s no accounting for political thickness.

And then there’s poor Thomas Byrne who was left floundering on Tuesday’s Prime Time as Miriam O’Callaghan rubbished the Government’s plan to now fund a ‘community’ hotel in Roscrea, only days after taking over the only hotel operating there and closing it for use by asylum seekers only. That’s what passes for a plan with this crowd in Government as more than €620m in public money is being spent on such accommodation.

Meanwhile the Tricolour was left hanging from an evergreen outside Racket Hall, a tragic insult to the Proclamation’s appeals for freedom and welfare, and its solemn injunction not to dishonour the cause by either cowardice or inhumanity.

Concerns about maintaining Racket Hall as a working hotel have also been well ventilated, making one wonder how many of the protesters were strong patrons of the business when it was still open. Could it be that many of those people creating all this racket are like so many others all over Ireland who never supported the local post office, yet howled to high heavens when that same post office was forced to close down for lack of business?