Sharon Keogan (Independent)

We keep hearing that Ireland is a small country with big ambitions but ambition without honesty is just spin. On immigration and housing, honesty means admitting a simple arithmetic truth. The volume of arrivals year after year is colliding with a housing system that is barely delivering the homes we need. Let me be absolutely clear: Ireland is in the midst of a housing crisis that is physically impossible to fix under the current immigration policy. In the year to April 2024, 149,200 people immigrated to Ireland. This was the highest number in 17 years. This was not a one-off. It was the third year in a row that more than 100,000 people arrived. Let us look at housing. Between 2016 and 2022 just 93,128 dwellings were built. This was over six years. We are bringing in more people annually than we are building homes in half a decade. The maths do not add up. The policy does not add up.

I have said previously that we are an island nation with only two major airports. Enforcing our border and operating a stricter migration policy could and should be simple. It appears that no one in the Government is willing to do the right thing. Why is this? It is because it is a hard decision. The right policy would mean that some unfortunate people would have to be turned away. Making hard decisions for the sake of the common good is the essence of politics and of political power.It is exactly what we have been elected to do. If you cannot bear hard decisions, then step down and return to civilian life. This is not some student council or local book club committee. This is the Oireachtas and what we say and do here affects all our lives. It affects every Irish family trying to find a roof over their heads. It affects every emigrant missing home and wondering if they will ever come back. While we are importing people, we are exporting our own. In the same year, 34,700 Irish citizens left the country. That is the highest level of emigration in a decade. It is not just any 100,000; it is 103,000 of our best and brightest now living in Australia alone. That is more than the population of Limerick city. Overwhelmingly, these are young, working-age Irish people in the prime of their lives who have been forced to go to the other side of the earth, away from their homes and families, because this Government has rendered their country unlivable. Then, the same Government turns around and says, "We need to take in over 140,000 new arrivals because we do not have the workers." We did have the workers but certain elements in this country did not want to pay them the wages they needed, and other elements wanted tenants whom they could charge higher rents. That is the truth. That is the rot at the heart of this policy.

Where is the Opposition in all of this? Where are the voices defending the Irish worker? The left, who once stood for the working man and woman, have become the most energetic proponents of mass migration. They have abandoned the Irish worker, the Irish family and the Irish community. They offer no real opposition, no scrutiny and no solutions.

We are told that this is about compassion. What about compassion for the people who already live here? What about the pensioner who cannot afford rent? What about the Irish couple who have been priced out of their home town? What about the nurse commuting two hours because there is nowhere affordable to live near the hospital? This is not sustainable or compassionate; this is insane. Ireland's tradition is compassion married with common sense. Compassion without capacity collapses into crisis. Common sense without compassion becomes cold. Today, we need both.

We need fair admissions, firm limits and a laser focus on building enough homes. Anything less is not progressive, not conservative, but simply irresponsible. We need to return to a policy that puts Ireland and our national well-being first, that puts the Irish worker first and puts our communities first. If we are in crisis then we have absolutely no capacity to help others. We need to pause mass migration, reassess our capacity and build a system that works for everyone, not just for the few who profit from it. Unfortunately, I am not hopeful because when our own Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, stands up in front of the national media and claims that the statement "Ireland for the Irish" - something that many of our nation's founders, and the founders of the Fianna Fáil Party, would have thought simple common sense - is tantamount to violence then we see the depth of our leadership's inability and unwillingness to deal with this crisis. To make things worse, anyone who attempts to raise the issue of migration is a matter for public debate and labelled far right. The irony is that this immature approach risks polarising society, surrendering the debate to extremists and, ultimately, makes such claims self-fulfilling. I genuinely wonder whether many of our politicians believe what they are saying. If they do, it shows a complete failure to speak to or listen to their constituents.

Of course I cannot speak for everyone, but the vast majority of Irish people protesting against mass migration whom I have spoken to hold little or no hatred for immigrants nor for people with different faiths, skin colour or backgrounds. In fact, many are themselves of immigrant background or have immigrant friends and partners. Unlike our leaders, many of those protesting or criticising the Government's current open border migration policy understand the distinction between individual immigrants, who deserve respect and judgment based on their character, and mass migration as a Government policy, which should be debated openly for its impact on our society, social services and national identity.

Colleagues, this is a moment for courage, for leadership and for truth.If we continue down this road we will lose more of our young people, deepening the housing crisis and fracturing the social fabric of this country. I will not stand by and watch this happen, and I ask you, "Will you?"