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

-----and cracking down and have stated we are going to see an awful lot more deportations.

What have we dealt with over recent years? As has been said, in 2018, the Caiseal Mara Hotel, Moville, County Donegal, where 100 asylum seekers were proposed to be accommodated, was burned out. The Shannon Key West Hotel on the Roscommon-Leitrim border was set on fire and a second fire was lit a month later, in February 2019. Later that year, two fires were set over plans to accommodate asylum seekers in a 25-unit apartment complex in Ballinamore, County Leitrim. In November 2022 - we had a bit of a break because of Covid - an equestrian centre in County Kildare that was proposed to house Ukrainian refugees was set alight. In January 2023, a fire was set at Rawlton House, Sherrard Street, Dublin. Violence escalated further in May, with tents belonging to homeless refugees at a makeshift camp in Sandwith Street, Dublin, set on fire. By the way, it was not as if people were not outside accommodation centres saying the only solution to this was to burn them out or as if people were not saying this on social media channels or as if this was not being reported or as if this was not flagged. In the same month, there were two attacks linked to refugee housing in Buncrana, County Donegal. A building at Ludden, Buncrana, where a businessman was going to establish a centre for Ukrainian refugees was set on fire. The former Gaelscoil Uí Ríordáin building in Ballincollig, County Cork, was targeted in July. It was a disused school building subject to plans to be used for accommodating Ukrainian refugees. In August, Ridge Hall, a vacant building on the Shanganagh Road, Ballybrack, Dublin, rumoured to be the subject for plans to house asylum seekers, was set ablaze.

This is an epidemic. In any other language, in any other country, this is terrorism. Of course, the lasting legacy of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, will be the riots last November and burning buses. The Holiday Inn Express, Cathal Brugha Street, was set on fire because rioters thought immigrants were inside. In Finglas, a petrol bomb was thrown into a premises earmarked for refugees, setting part of it on fire. Last December, the former Great Southern Hotel in Rosslare, County Wexford, which was being developed into a direct provision centre, was the victim of a suspected arson attack. Soon afterwards, the Ross Lake Hotel, Galway, was set alight, and we know what happened in Ringsend, Dublin. This year, in January, a disused convent in the main street of Lanesborough, County Longford, was set on fire, and we know about the St. Brigid's nursing home in Brittas, County Dublin, which also went up in flames.

There is a spate, a pattern, of protests not being called out, of blocked roads not being called out, of public meetings with violent language and rhetoric not really being cracked down on, of local representatives kind of turning up, or not turning up, or just playing both sides, and then everybody is surprised when the building goes up in flames. Meanwhile, there are completely dispirited, morale-on-the-floor, unprecedented resignations in An Garda Síochána. What we do we get from the Minister this year in the light of all that? Clearly, it has been successful, because these protests, this anger and this violence have led to Government representatives, yes, saying it is terrible and wrong and should not happen but changing its tone when it comes to immigration.

I am not going to come to the Chamber and tell the Minister she needs to change the immigration system. Other people may do that but I am not, because I am not afraid of an immigrant. I am afraid of the lunatic who wants to set something on fire. I am afraid of the person who wants to block a road. I am afraid of the person who thinks they can board a bus and check the passport of somebody who is not white. I am afraid of that person and I do not want anybody I love anywhere near that person. We are at a crossroads in this debate, and maybe we are unfortunate because this is an election year. That is probably the reason the Government has so many councillors getting excited about it and so many Ministers changing their tone. Even so, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, will have to respect my view that it is stunningly hypocritical of her party leader and Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, to start talking about clamping down on illegal immigration while going over to the States and demanding that the US introduce a different regime for illegal Irish over there.

This is domestic terrorism. This is people taking the law into their own hands and if this is not stopped and arrested, somebody is going to die. Let us recast our brains here. Let us recast our moral compass and treat this debate with the seriousness it deserves such that, when it comes to it, there is a line beneath which none of us should fall. We hear that people have genuine concerns and a right to express their view - absolutely - but we have to step back, as a collective in Irish politics, and say that, actually, when it comes down to it, you do not have the right to block a road. You do not have the right to intimidate women and children, to spread lies or to set something on fire. That is the baseline. That is today's conversation. Issues people may have with communication, the immigration process or the asylum process, I would respectfully suggest, are probably for another day. We are talking about people setting buildings on fire and it is a disgrace that in response to that, what we are getting from the Government are terms such as "clampdown", "crackdown" and "deportation".

Government members will not be using any of those phrases when talking about the undocumented Irish when they are in the White House in three weeks' time.

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