Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate where the Deputy is coming from. Last night in the Seanad I said that we should be reasonably satisfied, without being complacent in any way, that the political system and political debate in this country have not been strangled by the issue of immigration. If one looks at what is happening in the UK and across Europe at the moment, one can see that xenophobic tendencies are getting into the mainstream and immigration is at the heart of political debate in election campaigns.

We have to tackle the issue of racism, but the issue of integration is, to my mind, closely associated with it. We have asked sports clubs to have anti-racism strategies when applying for sports capital grants. That is not enough any more. Sports clubs, and all those in society, need to find strategies to positively interact and reach out, and they need to have integration strategies. Having reactions to particular negative incidents is fine and well and important. However, it is much more challenging for Irish society or aspects of Irish society to reach out. That is why having people of different ethnic backgrounds in key role model professions is also very important.

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