Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. We must not just condemn racism, we must also fight against it. That is why People Before Profit declares absolute solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and the wave of protest across the world in the aftermath of the horrific killing of George Floyd. There has been a rightful recognition by a vast number of people worldwide that it was not an isolated incident but, rather, a deadly and brutal consequence of systemic and widespread racism across America and the rest of the world. Anyone who spends time on social media will know that those putting forward that view will very quickly receive a torrent of abuse asking why one is going on about the Black Lives Matter movement and what is happening in America. One is asked what it has to do with us and told that surely all lives matter. Of course, what that sentiment fails to recognise, sometimes deliberately, is that it is precisely because all lives matter that we must declare solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The death of George Floyd could only happen in a society in which some people believe that the lives of black people and other people of colour do not matter.

They believe that they are somehow lesser, that they are dehumanised and, therefore, it is acceptable to treat them as less than human. That is the essence of racism, a system perpetuated by the likes of Donald Trump, who deliberately and cynically uses it to try to deflect away from his own failings on so many levels to turn people against one another by dehumanising black people and people of colour.

As has been said, if Trump is the most visible and blunt exponent of racism among leaders in the world today, it is not something that is alien to this country. Speakers have already mentioned the 27th amendment of the Constitution, which denies equality and citizenship to some children born in this country. There is the anti-Traveller racism, which is the shame of this State and which can very possibly be seen in the horrific consequences for the eight victims of James O'Reilly, who suffered the most terrible abuse. The allegation that is made, and that seems very credible, is that their ethnic origin as Travellers led to a poor response by the State in dealing with the horrific abuse they suffered. It is also seen in the fact that in the aftermath of the crash of 2008, the Traveller accommodation programme was cut from €70 million a year to €4 million in 2015 and, somehow, this was deemed acceptable; that 13% of female Travellers finish school as distinct from 70% of settled females; and that Travellers are six times more likely to die from suicide than people from the settled community. Of course, there is the horrific system of direct provision, which segregates asylum seekers and refugees in inhumane and degrading conditions that no person would accept for his or her own family or loved ones but which we seem to think are okay to inflict on people, mostly people of colour, who come to this country looking for refuge.

To those who say we should not raise these issues or that, somehow, it is not the business of the Irish people to worry about these things, I would say that that sentiment is a betrayal of the Irish revolutionary and radical tradition, which has always understood the need to stand with the oppressed and exploited, wherever they are across the world. I think particularly of Damien Dempsey's song, "Choctaw Nation", where he reminds people that the Choctaw nation of Native Americans, who suffered at the hands of slavers and frontiersmen, often Irishmen, rather than respond by saying, “We do not care about the plight of the Irish”, when the Irish were suffering famine conditions in the 1840s, instead sent money, aid and solidarity to Famine victims here in Ireland. That sort of internationalism, that sort of solidarity, standing with the oppressed, standing against racism, is actually the duty and responsibility of people across the world, but very particularly people in this country, given our history.

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