Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

They will posture further and further towards the compassionate end of the spectrum to find whether anybody will be foolish enough to challenge their bona fides.

Ireland is not a xenophobic society and has responded well to a novel situation. However, we are at times inclined to airbrush events out of our history. I think of the Jews who came to Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and established a significant community in Dublin city, where there were perhaps 5,000 Jews living until relatively recently. They participated fully in our society but it is undoubted they were at the receiving end of social discrimination which excluded them from clubs and otherwise. They were kept boxed in as a community. While I do not know the explanation for it, the decline of the Jewish community in Ireland is a matter about which we have nothing to be proud.