Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)

The Tánaiste said yesterday that we need a rationale, calm and informed debate on migration. I agree with that sentiment. Unfortunately, the past week offers little evidence that he means what he says. We need a reset on our public discourse on migration and that starts with all of us in this House and with our leaders in government. For a rationale debate, we need to make appeals to truth, not fears. For a calm debate, we need to stop exaggerating, misrepresenting and facilitating the endless conveyer belt of online lies which too often end up in diluted form on the floor of this House. For an informed debate, we must speak only to facts. The Tánaiste bulldozed through each of these three last week. He did so purposefully. He chose his words carefully. He knew the effect they would have on the ears that heard their fears reflected back to them and he knew the debate it would trigger. It contrasted so much with the thoughtful, rationale contribution from the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, in his article in yesterday’s edition of The Irish Times.

I will focus on the Tánaiste’s comments as the context could not be clearer. I will speak in factual terms now. This past weekend, we saw an attempt to kill innocent people and children. That is a fact. As the investigation into this is ongoing, we cannot speculate on what kind of hate is driving the minds of people who do these sort of things or where it comes from but we can make a fair guess.

It is against that backdrop of where are as a country right now that the Government must make a choice. It can speak to the facts about migration and international protection in our country, or it can continue to come out with poorly judged generalisations that are only speaking to fears. When you look at the approach taken recently, we are not seeing that leadership. We are actually seeing a bit of a blame game going on within the coalition.

Throughout the last Government, we regularly saw Fianna Fáil backbenchers coming out briefing against Helen McEntee, when she was justice Minister, about international protection. Last Wednesday, in a turnaround, we saw Simon Harris declaring that it is taking too long to deport people from the country. Following this, last Thursday, in an interview with Claire Byrne, the Taoiseach declared that it was a mistake to have taken migration responsibility out of the Department of justice. Except that never happened. The Department of justice has always had responsibility for all aspects of our border and who enters our country. Responsibility for issuing visas remained with the Department of justice. Responsibility for the Garda National Immigration Bureau, the International Protection Office and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal all remained with the Department of justice. Responsibility for policy on employment permits remained with the then Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The only thing that was taken out of the Department of justice was responsibility for accommodating people fleeing here, either through international protection or subsequently through temporary protection for those fleeing the war in Ukraine. This effort by the Taoiseach to rewrite history is not the leadership that we need.

At a time when there are bad-faith actors on the far right trying to divide our society in the most dangerous way, too often the country is left with a vacuum in leadership. Whether it is the attempted arson in Drogheda, the attacks on people of Indian or Southeast Asian descent across the summer or the continuous vicious racist abuse that many Irish people face online, the Government needs to stop its internal bickering, stop trying to shift blame and actually show leadership. The Government must lead on protecting people who are vulnerable, on standing up to hatred, whether it is on our streets or in the online space, and by combating misinformation with facts.

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