Events in Achill should not be tolerated
ONE of the earliest jobs I had when I started out in journalism was as a sub-editor for the sports department of the now closed Sunday Tribune. It was a fantastic paper to work for, full of imaginative and creative individuals, the kind of place where I would learn more in a day’s work than six months of college.
I had the privilege to work under the brilliant sports editor PJ Cunningham, and I can safely say I learned a great deal from him. Always generous with his advice, one nugget of wisdom that has stayed with me was to do with the art of headline writing, one of the responsibilities of a sub-editor. No matter how good a headline was, PJ would say, there was always a better one to be written.
In other words, no matter how good you think something is, there is always a better way, there is always room for improvement.
It is the type of advice that can be applied to most areas of your life. Work, family life, fitness, diet – we should never be content with the status quo, we should always strive for something better.
Looking at the sorry events in Achill over the past week, we are at a dangerous crossroads when it comes to how we view immigration. Surely there has to be a better way than this. Surely we are better than this?
We are now at the point where 13 vulnerable women were prevented from taking up emergency accommodation in a hotel in Achill due to protests. Just think about that for a minute: 13 women, prevented from taking up emergency accommodation, because protesters are ‘concerned’ over resources and facilities on the island. The protesters claim they are not opposed to asylum seekers, but instead have safety concerns about the proposed site.
Thirteen women, barely enough to fill a minibus. I’m sure the next time a bus load of American tourists show up on the island, the same people will be voicing their concerns about safety and lack of facilities.
A clear pattern has started to emerge here in recent weeks. A site in a rural town is identified as being suitable for emergency accommodation for asylum seekers, ‘ locals’ then voice their concerns not over the asylum seekers themselves but over the lack of facilities in the area. They claim to be protesting over the system, over the state of the Direct Provision service. Let’s not kid ourselves here.
It is obvious that there are racial undertones to these sham protests and that outside influences, of the alt-right variety, have been infiltrating these communities, stoking the fires. A Facebook group, the ‘Achill says No to inhumane treatment of asylum seekers’ is understood to have been set up by people not from the island.
There are extreme elements at play here, just look at how Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny’s car was set on fire, days after standing up in the Dáil to make an impassioned speech about how Ireland has an obligation to asylum seekers to give them shelter, that there needs to be a better way, that we should strive for a better society when it comes to immigration.
The government must take responsibility for this sad mess. By overseeing a Direct Provision system that is so flawed, it has given these protesters a valid reason for manning the picket lines in the first place.
These protest movements are pedalling an anti-immigrant message ‘dressed up in human rights language’, according to Fiona Finn, head of the Migrant and Refugee Rights Centre. They hide behind the fact Direct Provision is such a mess and say they are flagging genuine concerns.
It doesn’t help that last weekend An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s remarks about asylum seekers from Georgia and Albania travelling with ‘fake documents’ has been branded as ‘dangerous and gas-lighting’.
At such a critical juncture, strong leadership is required. We only have to look at countries like the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the USA to see what happens when alt-right ideology is allowed to fester.
There is always a better way to conduct ourselves. We should always strive to be better. That goes for our Taoiseach and our government too.