Blame game in Cabinet over migrants intensifies as all sides let insults fly
AN extraordinary blame game has erupted between the Coalition parties over the Government’s response to the deepening immigration crisis.
Cabinet defenders of Taoiseach Simon Harris this weekend hit out at other senior Government figures – including Tánaiste Micheál Martin, Integration Minister Roderic O’Gorman and Justice Minister Helen McEntee – for their handling of the issue.
This comes after the Irish Mail on Sunday last week revealed Cabinet ministers were highly critical of Mr Harris’s performance, branding him ‘naive’ and juvenile’.
Supporters of the Taoiseach said the briefings were ‘politically motivated’ in an effort to deflect blame from Fianna Fáil ministers.
A Cabinet source said: ‘Let’s not ignore that the reason we don’t have enough sustainable accommodation for asylum seekers or Ukrainian refugees is because we don’t have enough room to house our own population.
And that is down to [Housing Minister] Darragh O’Brien.’
As the blame game continues, separate sources said Mr Martin criticised ‘substandard’ communications at the Department of Justice and has told Fianna Fáil colleagues the Government needs to institute a ‘Covidlevel communications’ response.
The Coalition infighting and bickering comes amid growing fears the migrant crisis will cause widespread seat losses in next month’s local and European elections.
Each party has sought to point the finger of blame, although Minister McEntee has come in for criticism from Fianna Fáil, the Greens and senior figures in her own party. Minister O’Gorman has also been the target of stinging attacks across Government.
Some ministers expressed ‘shock’ that Mr Martin, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, appears to have successfully avoided much of the political blame for a crisis that is a direct responsibility of his own department.
The briefings point to a Government buckling under the strain of an immigration crisis that has swept across Europe in recent years.
One minister told the MoS: ‘At the very least there needs to be a bit of self-awareness with Micheál Martin. After all, the Department of Foreign Affairs is what it says on the tin.
‘It is pretty amazing that the minister with primary responsibility for our relations with other states and security for our borders has somehow dodged an awful lot of responsibility for this mess.’
And although some of the focus in recent weeks has been taken away from the Minister for Integration, Cabinet sources said Roderic O’Gorman’s department has been responsible for overseeing a disastrous response to the migrant crisis.
One minister said: ‘Let’s not forget that, for most of the last four years, it has been Roderic O’Gorman’s total failure to get to grips with this situation.
‘He is the Minister for Integration. He is doing nothing and is totally invisible.’
The source also criticised Mr Martin, saying the Tánaiste ‘has as much responsibility for this crisis as Helen McEntee or Simon Harris’.
They added: ‘He has just been wilier politically, showing all his experience. Harris has made major errors in placing a lot of his credibility on his success or otherwise in restoring law and order.
‘And he has attached himself to clearing the tents, and guaranteeing they won’t come back. But they have.’
Some Cabinet ministers pointed out that Mr Martin escalated the row with the British government when he first raised fears of increased numbers of migrants
coming here as a result of Britain’s controversial Rwanda policy, and cast doubt on Department of Justice figures suggesting 80% of asylum seekers arriving here were coming across the border.
One minister has a theory: ‘He’s around too long for these not to have been premeditated statements; they were efforts to deflect political responsibility.’
Minister McEntee was the subject of sustained attacks at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting in Leinster House on
Wednesday night. One Fianna Fáil TD said: ‘I had a situation recently where I held a public meeting and told constituents that the Department of Justice had decided to allocate a number of asylum seekers to a particular vacant building located in the constituency.
‘Everyone was very adult about the whole thing, and they accepted that a vacant eyesore was going to be renovated.
‘Then, without me being informed, the Department decided not to move them in after all. So I suffered all the political damage and was made to look like I didn’t know what was going on in my own Government.
‘It is a sh**show. And, sadly, that is at the Minister’s door.’
‘There needs to be a bit of self-awareness’
‘It’s a sh**show. That’s at the Minister’s door’