Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome our Cavan guests this afternoon. I would like to address two important issues: immigration and freedom of debate. Last week in this Chamber and in the Dáil, many of our colleagues lined up to denounce Conor McGregor and the speech he gave in the White House concerning our current immigration crisis. While there are criticisms to be made of McGregor, ultimately he was enabled by the decades of utter silence on immigration by all the same Members who criticised him. This point was made last week by the famous Irish influencer Garron Noone, and for the sole act of acknowledging that there was an immigration issue, Noone was harassed and bombarded with abuse and was forced to take his accounts down. If the severity with which Noone was treated for an objectively mild and milquetoast statement came as a shock to anyone in these Houses, the fact is that this incident is typical of a culture of silence and of suppressing dissent, a culture that has been created and even actively encouraged by the vast majority in these Houses. Let us not forget that only last year the Government was attempting to eliminate the presumption of innocence in the name of fighting hate speech.

Luckily, I am glad that Noone has come back to social media and says that he stands by his statements. I applaud his integrity in standing up for himself and staying honest and I look forward to his future reviews of chicken rolls and cups of tea. Ladies and gentlemen of the House: stay delicious.