The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Ireland is paying the price for its Brexit arrogance
Leo Varadkar left his job as Irish prime minister last month with compliments being lavished on him from all directions – especially the White House – for his triumph over Brexit Britain in forcing the retention of an open land border on Northern Ireland.
For many, the damage that it did to relationships with unionists in the North was a matter for satisfaction – one up on the old enemy. But while the Irish are traditionally uninterested in the law of unintended consequences, the results this time are potentially catastrophic.
The “Ah-sure-it’ll-be-grand” cheery optimism of my countrymen can be very attractive, but it’s no way to address major crises.
Take the Ukraine war, and the subsequent massive displacement of people.
The Irish have a tendency to love visionaries and virtue-signallers. The then German chancellor Angela Merkel became widely admired as a heroine when, in 2015, she opened her arms to 1.2 million refugees, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe has been reaping the consequences of such a cultural upheaval ever since.
Ireland was as open-handed when it came to welcoming Ukrainians. A country of five million took in more than 100,000.
There was much selfcongratulation for its generosity, along with sneering at the meanspirited Brits. But so unstinting were the benefits showered on Ukrainian refugees that some already safely in the EU relocated to Ireland.
And as Dublin’s reputation for being an even softer touch than London grew, non-Ukrainian applications for asylum (aka international protection) showed a 186 per cent increase from 2019 to 2022.
Now practically every little town in Ireland is seeing hotels and hostels commandeered and packed out, and there are unfortunate asylum seekers sleeping in tents in front of government buildings in Dublin.
Making everything worse is the unintended consequence of insisting on an absolutely open border between the Republic and Northern Ireland. The minister for justice, Helen McEntee, has had to admit that more than 80 per cent of people applying for asylum in the Republic are coming over the border from the North and she
Non-Ukrainian applications for asylum increased by 186 per cent from 2019 to 2022
clearly has absolutely no idea what to do about it.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, then followed up her comments by suggesting that the threat of being deported to Rwanda had caused an influx of migrants from the UK into the Republic. Asylum seekers wished “to get sanctuary here and within the European Union as opposed to the potential of being deported to Rwanda”, he said.
On top of this, the Irish government, apparently deeply unbothered about preserving the country’s sovereignty, has decided to opt into the EU Pact on Asylum and Migration without giving any but the most cursory parliamentary scrutiny.
According to Senator Michael McDowell – the distinguished lawyer who almost single-handedly persuaded the Irish electorate to reject two ill-thought out and deeply foolish referendums – it illustrates the “massive black hole” in Ireland’s legislative relationship with the EU.
For a country that mocked Britain’s desire for sovereignty, and sought to use obstinate insistence about an open border as a means for punishment, it is a brutal comeuppance. Ireland’s elites are being hoist by their own petard.