Paul Murphy
Dublin South-West · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“The Minister of State assured us we are bound by international law but then went on to talk about the fact that he wants to deploy troops outside the framework of international law. That is why the Government is getting rid of the triple lock. All the triple lock does is ensure that we only can send troops in line with international law.”
“The case for MetroLink south west is extremely strong. There are 350,000 people living between the Luas red and green lines. That is who will be served by this.”
“Hopefully the junior Minister will be able to clarify. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, said earlier to Deputy Ó Laoghaire, "The people I speak to do not like the fact that Russia has essentially removed, or will remove in the coming months, all our peacekeeping troops from UNIFIL".”
“I, too, want to ask about the senior Minister. This came up at the Dáil reform committee last week. It is very peculiar that a senior Minister is here and has answered previous questions on the triple lock today and then – no offence meant - we have the junior Minister answering these questions, which precisely prevents the continuation o…”
“Its defence is that we should not worry because the Government is only going to send them as part of an international force. I do not think anyone here thinks the Government is going to invade a country all by itself.”
“It is there in black and white in the programme for Government and the Government needs to live up to its commitment to do a new, properly independent feasibility study. I appeal to the Minister of State to ask the Minister for Transport to meet with the metro south west group which has been doing such excellent campaigning on this issue.”
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“A second argument is that we do not want to be alone, but we are going so slowly, under public pressure, that we are no longer alone. Slovenia has already moved to ban imports by immediate government decision. In Belgium, there is a government announcement in relation to the occupied territories and Spain has moved on the importation of goods, as has the Netherlands. We are certainly no longer alone. The other argument that is now advanced, which is absolutely threadbare, is the idea that this will be unimplementable. How could we possibly do this in terms of services? The problem the Government has there is that it already does it in terms of services in Russia.”
“One of the good reasons put forward by Simon Harris on a number of occasions is that he wants to include services but is afraid that there might be legal issues with it. There is no basis to that whatsoever. First, there is the position of the International Court of Justice, upon which the whole change of Government position was based, which makes no distinction between goods and services. That is the fundamental point in terms of international law. Second, there is now talk of Attorney General advice. This is the most blatant retroactive getting of advice to suit a political position. The Attorney General already gave advice on this and made no mention of any problem in terms of services. This is simply an attempt to find legal cover for the political retreat that the Government wants to engage in.”
“The Government does not want to face the prospect of TDs who support this Government voting against it. It does not want to see Members who supported the call at the foreign affairs committee to include services being pressured to vote against including services now. It does not want to reveal its real position to the Irish people, which is that it does not want to include services. It wants to water this legislation down. That is the truth of its position, which is one of extreme moral cowardice and extreme cynicism. I will now address both the so-called good reasons put forward by the Government to explain why, in reality, it wants to back away from this, as well as the real reasons.”
“One is that the Bill be implemented in full before Christmas and the other is that services be included. We have a Government that says it is not going to oppose this motion, so this will be the position of the Dáil after this debate. However, in the same breath as saying that it is not going to oppose the motion, the Government is saying that it is not going to guarantee that it will implement it before Christmas and that it has not yet decided if it is going to include services. It is a complete joke. The Government makes a farce of this place by saying that the Dáil can pass whatever it wants, that it will allow a simple two-ask motion to pass, but it will not give any commitment to actually implement it. That is the height of cynicism. What is it about? It is about cowardice.”
“The International Court of Justice is clear that states are under an obligation to abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings and to prevent trade or investment relations with the settlements. There is no mention just of goods there. International law is very clear. It is also in line with the strong recommendation of the Oireachtas foreign affairs committee, which strongly recommended "progressing the Bill" and that the prohibition on imports "should be extended to include trade in services". It is line with the promises made by Simon Harris and Micheál Martin over a year ago during the general election debate. This motion is extremely minimal in what it asks, as is the Bill. Our motion could not be simpler or clearer, with only two very simple asks.”
“Palestinian people are being violently removed from their land. Their land is being stolen from them today and taken by these Israeli settlers. Later on, the Israeli Government authorises and recognises this and more Palestinian land is stolen. At the time of the Oslo Accords, there were 250,000 illegal Israeli settlers. When Senator Frances Black first introduced this Bill, there were 600,000 such settlers and today there are 750,000 of them. The latest settlement is the so-called E1, which divides the West Bank in two, further isolating Palestinians in Jerusalem. It is all about a logic of extermination of the Palestinian people. That is what the genocide and the settlements are about. This motion is an extremely modest proposal, as Deputy Boyd Barrett has outlined. It is in line with international law.”
“There is going to be an army of occupation called the international stabilisation force answerable, not to the Palestinian people, but to the viceroys on the board of peace. What is absent from the UN resolution and what is absent from the peace plan is the Palestinian people; the Palestinian people's right to self-defence, their right to determine their own government and their right to self-determination. However, the counterpart to the genocide we saw openly unfolding for two years in Gaza, backed by western imperialism, armed by western imperialism, supported by western imperialism, the US, Germany, Britain, the EU, is the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. This year, 30,000 settlement units have been approved by the Israeli Government. The term "settlements" does not capture what is happening.”
“The UN resolution explicitly endorses the so-called "board of peace" as a "transitional administration". This is a board to be chaired by Donald Trump. The only other member we know who is going to be on it is Tony Blair, a war criminal, but presumably he will be joined by a series of other war criminals and these people are to be imposed, without vote and without any consultation with the Palestinian people, as new colonial viceroys on the people of Gaza. What Trump plans to do there is set out in his own Trump plan. It was set out in that disgusting video about the Trump-Riviera plan for Gaza and then, in slightly more polite terms, it is in the peace plan as a "Trump economic development plan" and "a special economic zone".”
“Two days ago, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2803, a resolution endorsing the so-called Trump peace plan - a peace plan that, disgracefully, was welcomed by the Irish Government. We will probably hear it welcomed again today. It makes the saying from Tacitus, "they make a desert and call it peace," the most appropriate it has ever been because after two years of genocide, after killing at least 66,000 people, over 20,000 children, after imposing famine, after mowing people down while queuing for food, after destroying the majority of buildings, the hospitals, the schools, the universities, the homes in Gaza, now a peace is declared but it is no peace at all. It is a continued colonial carve-up that is remarkable only for how naked it is.”
“The extreme centre thinks that hard choices need to be made for the poor, the disabled and workers but if you are Apple, Paschal Donohoe and this Government will spend millions to fight for your right not to pay tax, if you are Google you get tax changes in order to minimise your tax liability and if you are a developer you get a massive tax break. This is why we need a fundamental change of Government and who the Government represents.”
“The article refers to a meeting between the heads of Google and the then Minister for Finance: Briefing documents for the meeting show Donohoe offered a number of commitments on tax changes to Ashkenazi [head of Google], several of which were subsequently delivered or signalled in the budget. One of those is worth more than €300 million. Google was able to knock on the front door, come in, meet the Minister for Finance and get a tax break of €300 million in the same budget that made disabled people poorer. This gets to the heart of what Tariq Ali has described as the "extreme centre".”
“In one of the richest countries in the world with a record budget surplus, this Government and Paschal Donohoe decided to make disabled people poorer, and not just poorer in real terms but poorer in nominal terms by well over €1,000. This Government decided to make the poorest income group poorer by over 4% in real terms. It decided to make everybody, ordinary people, poorer by about 2% while giving huge tax breaks to big business. This is presented as sensible centrism. An article in the Business Post , which got very little coverage or very little kind of echo, was very interesting. It was revealing of how the Government actually operates.”
“The left are those who say that we should have decent access to housing for everybody, that we should have free childcare, that we should have a decent national health service and that we should have a society based on people's needs not profit. The right, of course, are those who want to demonise the most vulnerable, who want to burn down IPAS centres and so on but look substantially at this centrism Paschal Donohoe speaks of and what this Government has legislated for? Take the example of the last budget. This is centrism and this is what is packaged as what is sensible, normal and not very ideological at all.”
“I am sharing time with Deputies Coppinger and Boyd Barrett. On a personal level, I wish the former Minister for Finance well but on a political level and on an ideas level, I do not wish his ideas and his politics well. It is worth examining what Paschal Donohoe's ideology has been and what it has meant. He is one of the more ideological and more considered figures within the political establishment in Ireland. What characterises the more general statements by the former Minister is to talk about the defence of the centre and that the centre must hold against extremes of left and right. He characterises himself as a centrist and Fine Gael as centrist, and presumably Fianna Fáil as a centrist. What does that mean? First, let us consider the extremes of left and right.”
“It is pretty shameless of the Government to use the occasion of Paschal Donohoe moving on in the world to avoid answering questions today. I also want to say that the statements on paediatric care must be made into questions and answers. We pushed for this at the Business Committee. There has been a long push for a statutory inquiry into the care of children with scoliosis and spina bifida. I understand a memo was meant to go to Cabinet today. People were led to believe it was going to be signed off on but I have heard it was not signed off on at Cabinet today.”
“It thinks saying we should invest money in building housing that is affordable is immature because we do not understand how the market works. When it says young people are not mature enough to vote, what it is really giving away and what it is scared of, is that young people have progressive opinions on a wide range of things and are not going to back up the continuation of the rule of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and will look to the left. For me, that is not the reason to support it. It is a point of principle regardless of how young people are going to vote. The fact is 16 and 17 year olds should of course have the right to a say and vote. We should stop the paternalistic attitude towards them. We would also get all the benefits seen in other countries in terms of increased turnout as we would be engaging people at a younger point.”
“The only way the Government will be beaten on it is if public pressure comes to bear and it feels it cannot withstand it. The bottom-line point on the maturity issue is the Government thinks we are immature. It is not just young people it thinks are immature, it thinks all of the left is immature. If we look at the neutrality debate, we are presented as being immature because we are in favour of neutrality. We are presented as immature because we are in favour of actual climate action. We are in favour of what Mícheál Martin spoke about in Brazil; actually doing it, following the science and telling the truth as opposed to bending over backwards to multinational corporations, big tech, fossil fuel companies and big agri businesses. The Government thinks that is immature and not taking the economy seriously.”
“The Low Pay Commission, the body that was going to look into it, then came out and said we should get rid of sub-minimum wages. The report the Government said it was going to wait for came out and said it should do the thing our Bill was going to do. Did the Government then do it? No. It said the Department of Finance needed a further economic investigation into how much it would cost. It started that over a year ago. It did not even wait for that to be published; it is still not published, and the Government has said it is not going to do it. It said it will reconsider it in 2029. So, this is a scam the Government is currently engaged in. It does not have the courage to say it does not think 16 and 17-year-olds should be allowed to vote so instead it is kicking the can down the road and trying to make it go away.”
“A person could say to me it is very cynical to think that, but the reason I know it is because the Government did exactly the same thing to a Bill I brought forward to stop discrimination against young people. In 2022, I brought forward at First Stage a Bill for equal pay for young workers to stop the scandal of sub-minimum wages, whereby under 20s are legally allowed to be paid less than the minimum wage. We brought that to Second Stage, which is what is happening here, on 14 June 2023. Again, the Government did not have the courage of its convictions to vote against it and say it was in favour of the super-exploitation of young people, so instead it did the same thing and tabled a timed amendment and said the Low Pay Commission was looking into it and it would delay it for a year and that a year later it would be deemed to be passed.”
“They are the ones who on the current trajectory are going to be forced to emigrate, because they cannot afford to get housing here. They are the ones affected by all of it and they are fully mature. I will come back to the point on maturity later. If a person was not familiar with Dáil procedures, they could look at this and say the Government is not being unreasonable. It is saying to give a year for the Independent Electoral Commission to look into it further. That all sounds very reasonable. Let me say, this is a scam. The Government is kicking the can down the road. It has no intention whatsoever of allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to vote. It is not telling young people the truth. That is what is happening here.”
“I thank the Social Democrats and Deputy Farrelly in particular for bringing this forward. It is a really important Bill and it is great they have used their Private Members' time for it. I do not think we need to debate this; it is the most obvious thing in the world that 16 and 17-year-olds should be able to vote. It is their future and them who are going to live in the barbarous world we are currently on a trajectory for. It is them who have the power and I hope are going to avert us from the course we are currently on, of descent into ecological breakdown, a world marked by war and genocide, the rise of the far-right, authoritarianism and fascism. They are the people currently out working, paying taxes, able to join the army and not permitted a say in all the decisions that are made.”
“The Minister can continue the process of consultation, but they need this payment now, particularly if the Government is not going to force more disabled people into poverty and deprivation over the coming months.”
“The cost-of-living crisis is now. The cost-of-disability crisis is now. One in four households with a disabled person experiences deprivation. That is going to be worse next year as a result of the budget. Again, we live in one of the richest countries in the world that has record national surpluses. The Government has made repeated commitments to equality and inclusion, but it has introduced a budget that will make disabled people poorer. They cannot wait until next year. As already stated, the Department of Finance report from 2021 referred to the average annual cost of disability at that stage of more than €10,000. It is €15,000 now . Disabled people are appealing to the Minister and the Government to introduce an emergency winter payment to offset the cost of disability.”
“I presume the Minister is not disputing the fact that the budget made disabled people poorer, despite the measures he is announcing. The disability support grant was cut by €400. In respect of the living alone allowance, the lump sum of €200 was cut. That is another €200 gone. The fuel allowance was reduced for disabled people, resulting in a net loss of €160. The October double payment of €254 was cut. The electricity credits of €250 were cut. The total value of one-off supports taken away from disabled people is €1,404. Even when you take into account the small increases the Minister announced, disabled people will still be worse off to the tune of over €1,000. That is in nominal terms as opposed to real terms. In real terms, namely in the context of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, it is even worse.”
“The programme for Government promises a permanent, annual cost-of-disability support payment, with a view to incrementally increasing this payment. Instead of doing that, we have just had a budget in one of the richest countries in the world, with a substantial budget surplus, that did not introduce this payment. Instead, it made disabled people poorer to the tune of more than €1,000. This question is an appeal to the Government to introduce an emergency winter payment to offset the extra cost of disability.”
“The Government made them poorer, and took over €1,000 from them. Will it recognise this as a major mistake? Will it bring back an emergency lump sum cost-of-living payment for disabled people before Christmas?”
“It is shocking in one of the richest countries in the world, with a budget surplus and with the cost-of-living crisis ongoing, that the Government made disabled people poor. That is not just in real inflationary terms but even in nominal terms.”
“The budget reneged on a key commitment in the programme for Government to introduce a permanent annual cost of disability support payment and then to incrementally increase it. We know that it costs a lot of money to be disabled in this country. A few years ago, the Department of Finance estimated it at around €10,000. It has obviously gone up substantially since then. Last year's €400 lump sum disability payment was a drop in the ocean but far from increasing it, as promised, the Government abolished it completely. It slashed other payments that disabled people rely on, like the living alone allowance lump sum and the electricity credit. Even taking into account small increases to the disability allowance, the Government still took well over €1,000 out of the pockets of disabled people.”
“Will any response include a refusal to engage in any more scapegoating of migrants? While the scapegoating of migrants might temporarily divert anger away from the Government in the context of a number of crises, it gives credibility to the poison and hate that these people are trying to spread.”
“It has been almost two years since I spoke here about a campaign of far-right terror in this State. We have seen this move step by step from threats to intimidation to misinformation and on to the burning down of empty buildings and attacks on buildings with people inside, including women, children, young babies. We have also witnessed attacks on migrants. Last week, we had the prevention by An Garda Síochána of what was allegedly a planned terror attack. People were allegedly in possession of explosives and were planning to use them against a mosque in Galway. They had a manifesto and prerecorded videos. This has all the echoes of the far-right terror that we have seen in other countries. What is the Government going to do to try to cut across this attempt at a far-right terror campaign?”
“We need drastic action as opposed to just words abroad. Is the Taoiseach still committed to the 51% target and, if so, will he launch new additional measures that are needed?”
“Last week, the Taoiseach made a fine speech in Belém. He spoke about the need to listen to the science, tell the truth to citizens and for urgent action to meet climate targets. He said that leaders must lead. This was at COP30. The problem is that he does not take his own advice when he is back at home. He leads a Government which is on track to miss our legally binding targets by a country mile. As it currently stands, we are not even on track to hit half of our 51% target. The Government is allowing the big polluters to call the shots, bending over backwards to the tech companies and projecting that the data centres may use up to 30% of our energy by the end of this decade. It is in favour of new fossil fuel infrastructure, the dirtiest fossil fuel infrastructure possible, in the form of liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminals.”
“The revelations at the weekend from a CHI whistleblower about why Harvey Morrison Sherratt was removed from a waiting list were truly shocking and scary. Apparently - allegedly, but wrongly - it was because he was deemed to be palliative. It underscores the need for a full public inquiry as the parents have been campaigning for-----”
“The final set of issues relate to the misallocation of funds raised by a Save Dublin Zoo appeal during Covid. An investigation by the Charities Regulator found that some of those funds were used to build an extension to the then zoo director's house. I have a letter from the zoo released only under freedom of information admitting that the funds were used for this extension. I also have an email from the Charities Regulator stating that it would not publish the Covid funds investigation because "the publication of this information could be detrimental to the zoo's reputation". Even if it did its job properly, the Charities Regulator's remit is limited and does not extend to animal welfare. An entirely new system of independent oversight is urgently needed. I hope this Bill can be the first step in developing that.”
“During that time he was, on at least one occasion, sitting outside her house in a car late at night. This was reported to HR but nothing was done. When she returned to work, the manager followed her around in an intimidating manner. Nothing was done about that either. She was then the only person to be made redundant in the zoo while the male manager is still a senior member of staff. Last April, the same woman had a brick thrown through her front window. On a previous occasion, when I spoke about issues in Dublin Zoo in the Dáil, the tyres of her car were slashed. In another incident, three female members of staff were sexually harassed by a male manager at a conference. A subsequent HR investigation confirmed three instances of harassment. He is still a senior manager at the zoo.”
“This is a very small, fragile antelope who should never have been moved so roughly. Last weekend, a pregnant cheetah was moved from Fota Wildlife Park to Dublin Zoo at Hallowe'en. She gave birth the next day and all the baby cubs are now dead. She should never have been moved when pregnant. Another incident I have raised in the past was the drugging of a family of elephants that were cruelly separated by zoo management. Two of them died from stress and the rest of the remaining herd developed herpes reactivated by stress. Another serious problem at the zoo is harassment, including sexual harassment of workers and a refusal by HR to take appropriate action to protect staff. A female staff member repeatedly complained about being harassed by a male manager. He was eventually suspended for four months.”
“This time, welfare concerns raised by experienced zoo keepers were not investigated in time and all the dogs died. One dog had cancer in the mouth that was left untreated and had to be put down. Before it died, it got no medication or medical intervention. Another was pregnant and became very swollen. Her lungs and heart became filled with fluid. She never recovered after being administered an anaesthetic and she died. That species is now gone from the zoo. The same thing happened with the wolves, which were all put down after a health check. That is two whole species gone from the zoo. Other animal deaths have included four bongo antelopes and a black buck whose leg was snapped in half and left hanging on by a ligament after being inappropriately transported in a horse box.”
“This is a national institution loved by generations of children and their families who go there believing the animals they see are being well cared for and that by going to the zoo, they are contributing to the conservation of endangered species around the world. It gives me no pleasure to say that for some of these animals this is far from the truth. Over the past few years, I have spoken on multiple occasions to zoo workers who are outraged at the neglect and mistreatment of animals in the zoo. To be clear, in most cases this is down to understaffing and a lack of proper training. It is the fault of zoo management, not at all of the workers. A recent example is the deaths of all the African wild dogs. This is an endangered species about whom welfare concerns were raised three years ago by NPWS inspectors, and by me in this House.”
“The issues include very serious animal welfare issues culminating in the deaths of numerous animals and the disappearance of whole species from the zoo. There are credible allegations of harassment, including sexual harassment, of zoo workers by managers. There are financial irregularities, of which I now have documentary proof, including the misallocation of funds raised in a Save Dublin Zoo appeal during Covid to build an extension to the zoo director's house. To cap it all, there was a lack of concern and a total lack of proper oversight by the State over any of this. This is not some faceless bureaucratic organisation.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to require the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to produce a report on the appointment of an emergency independent inspector for Dublin Zoo. I am introducing this Bill in an effort to highlight a range of very serious issues at the zoo. None of them has been properly investigated, despite repeated attempts by concerned workers at the zoo to bring them to the attention, first, of management and HR and then of the Charities Regulator, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, and even An Garda Síochána. When journalists have asked questions about this, they have been met with legal letters. One journalist received no fewer than 11 legal letters, including a letter sent to their entire workplace.”
“Can they get commitments in writing around some of these things? Can the Tánaiste or other senior Ministers meet with them to reassure them that their case is being dealt with seriously at the highest level, and to try to bring this to a successful end?”
“The last time I raised the case of the industrial and reformatory school survivors, who are outside the Dáil on hunger strike, was three weeks ago and at that stage they had been on hunger strike for 22 days. It has now been 47 days and they are still on hunger strike. They are in very grave territory in terms of their health. Their ask is very simple: access to a full Health (Amendment) Act medical card and a full State contributory pension. I understand there was a meeting with a mediator recently but they are saying they have nothing in writing in terms of those very clear asks. I listened to the Tánaiste's response earlier. I appreciate that the Tánaiste accepts this is a very grave situation.”
“We want the people to be able to decide. Why is the Tánaiste so scared of allowing the people to have their view and their say on this? I would like to ask the Tánaiste about one point of substance. He repeatedly speaks about "the principles of the UN Charter", which are also mentioned in the heads of the proposed legislation. That is deliberate, is it not? The Tánaiste will not speak about a commitment to abide by the UN Charter or the articles of the UN Charter. Instead, he refers purely to the vague and broad "principles" of Article 2, which do not bind the Government to stick to international law.”
“The Tánaiste speaks about his electoral mandate, and there is no question about that. The basis of his party's mandate is its election manifesto, which referred to "preserving our long-standing policy of active military neutrality" and maintaining military neutrality. There was no mention of redefining that or getting rid of the triple lock. Therefore, the Tánaiste does not have a mandate for what he is trying to do. There was the vaguest hint and glance to making such a change in the Fianna Fáil manifesto, but it did not refer to repealing the triple lock. The Tánaiste's party made no such commitment. This is precisely the point. We are not claiming that the presidential election was a referendum on neutrality, pure and simple, but we want a referendum on neutrality. We want a referendum on the triple lock.”
“Both said they supported neutrality, but the difference was that Heather Humphreys said it in the way the Tánaiste says it, which is to empty the word of any meaning. One candidate, Catherine Connolly, defended the triple lock; the other candidate opposed it. The candidate who defended the triple lock got 63% of the vote. That is an expression of people's will. The Government really has no mandate to proceed with this, particularly in the context of the promise to keep the triple lock being crucial in persuading people to change their minds in terms of the second Nice treaty referendum. People have voted for this effectively twice and the Government wants to get rid of it without allowing them a third vote.”
“The Government wants to get rid of the triple lock in order that it can send Irish troops abroad on EU or NATO-led missions. The Government will not tell us where it wants to send these troops. I oppose that. I defend our neutrality. I believe the majority of people do. However, I want to focus, at least initially, less on the substance of that but on the democratic question. The Government has refused, despite calls from many in the Opposition, to hold a plebiscite to allow the people to decide, so the closest thing we have to a view of the people is the presidential election. Neutrality was arguably the number one issue in the election, and there was a clear difference between the Government's candidate and the candidate I supported.”
“We want them to actually get out of emergency accommodation. The Government is going to keep people in poverty in these systems just so it can have some performative cruelty. This is the thin end of the wedge. If the Government gets away with doing this for asylum seekers in their emergency accommodation, is it going to do the same for homeless people? Is the Government going to use that horrendous attack? If it sets up the system, spends millions of euros on it and establishes the principle that if people work while in State-provided accommodation they should pay, then all homeless people will be next. That is why we must stand against this divisive policy.”
“It is all an incredible distraction technique to make people think that the problems in our society, the housing crisis, the health crisis and the cost-of-living crisis and the causes of those problems are not those at the top, those who profit from those crises, not the Government that represents those forces that profit, but the most vulnerable people. The latest act of performative cruelty or suggestion, which is being trailed again and again, is the idea that the Government is going to charge people who are working for staying in IPAS accommodation. It is presented as just common sense. Why would people not be paying? Well, one reason might be that it is going to cost more to implement than the Government will raise. There is also a very good reason that we do not charge people who stay in, for example, emergency accommodation.”
“We got the grim answer in the run-up to the local elections, where Sinn Féin deserves a fell-for-it award where it tried to compete in being more anti-immigrant than the Government, which resulted in a disastrous election for Sinn Féin because it all became about immigration. The Government earlier stated that it was overrun at that stage and that the result was that people were on the canal. That is not what happened. That is not true. There were empty beds in the system. The Government chose to put people on the canal because it wanted to make people homeless in order to centre the issue of immigration and say that was the problem.”
“The idea, as it was suggested by a Fianna Fáil TD, that by doing so they will cut across the rise of the far right and that this is what the evidence across Europe shows is ridiculous. All the evidence shows that as the establishment moves to the right, it reinforces the rhetoric and analyses of the far right. It simply gives them more and more space because the establishment cedes ground to them. Fintan O'Toole was absolutely correct in analysing why this is happening: There is a question that hovers over Irish politics: what will the parties of power do when they start to panic about losing it? Last week, after their joint debacle in the presidential election, we got the grim answer: turn on immigrants. It is not the first time we got the grim answer.”