Eileen Flynn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ballyfermot Youth Service will hold a vigil at 4.30 p.m. today outside Ballyfermot Garda station in response to the incident that happened at the weekend. We send the solidarity of the House, but I send it also as a person who was born and reared in Ballyfermot.We have to understand that not every single person in that community is a bad person. That is my message today. While we stand in solidarity with An Garda Síochána, we also stand in solidarity with the community of Ballyfermot and the young people who have to grow up in these communities.

On today's Order of Business, I will also say that I know exactly what it is like to be oppressed in Irish society. On the increasing level of racism towards people who are fleeing war and coming here for international protection we have being seeing both on and off social media, as we say in my house, it is a mortal sin to treat people in such a disrespectful manner. It is not every single person in Ireland but a few. Again, coming from the community I come from, I know that we cannot target all people as being on the far right or as bad people. Senator Ruane and I were having a conversation about this with some other people last night. Not everybody in the host community means badly. Oppressed people can become oppressors and we have to look at why, although I am not excusing what happened in the past few days with regard to racism and discrimination. We, as leaders, and the Government have a role in rolling out campaigns to support people coming to our country from others. I stand in solidarity with and respect every single refugee in Irish society and I say to them now that they have millions of welcomes from the people of Ireland. A few might have stood against that welcome that day but I ask those refugees to put that aside because they have the support of the majority.