by Stephen McCloskey
[This article is part of a series called Answering Ireland’s Call: Thoughts for a new republic (Freagairt ar Ghlaoch na hÉireann: Smaointe ar phoblacht nua). The series will publish articles discussing the reunification of Ireland but within the context of early 21st Century ills such as the climate crisis, capitalism and fascism. If you like what you read, please share the articles far and wide. If you have insights and ideas on the subject and want to make a contribution, the project team would love to hear from you via irelandscall@mailbox.org. This article was also published on ZNetwork.]
A toxic debate constantly swirls around the issue of immigration that often deploys myths and stereotypes to ‘other’ immigrants as an impediment to development, competition for native employment, a drain on resources or a threat to border security. Incendiary political statements and policies on immigration can spread racism and hostility to migrants, and put wind in the sails of the far-right. Where Ireland might once have been considered a European outlier of the far-right, evidence from the European Union and Local Council elections held on 7 June showed new far-right parties gaining a political foothold. One of these parties, Independent Ireland, won a seat in the European Parliament in the Midlands North-West constituency receiving 57,000 first preference votes. The Irish Freedom Party and National Party each managed to each get a local council candidate elected and are the first-ever members of registered far-right parties to hold office in Ireland. Three independent far-right candidates were also elected to local councils but the return of five councillors was a small percentage of the more than one hundred people who stood for far-right parties or as far-right independents.
Whilst it is important not to exaggerate the influence of the far-right on the Irish political system, the election of a small number of far-right candidates signals the extent to which immigration has become an increasingly inflamed issue in Irish society as the country has struggled to provide state accommodation for more than 100,000 refugees from Ukraine accepted since February 2022. Earlier this year, hundreds of asylum-seekers were forced to live in tents in central Dublin due to the lack of availability of state-provided accommodation until being moved to the less conspicuous Crooksling in south-west County Dublin. But the tents returned to central Dublin as newly arriving homeless asylum-seekers set up makeshift camps along the city’s quay that have been targeted by men armed with knives and steel bars. On 16 July, fifteen Palestinian and Somali international protection applicants sleeping in tents on the quays were set upon late at night, had their tents slashed and thrown into the river Liffey, and had to flee for their lives. In Coolock, an area of high deprivation on Dublin’s Northside, there has been serious unrest including the throwing of petrol bombs, at the siting of a former paint factory for an accommodation centre for asylum-seekers. While Ireland’s national economy has improved, deprivation and disadvantage continues to plague inner city areas like Coolock. The migrant debate has been a trigger point for local anger, particularly at the lack of consultation with local representatives on the siting of the accommodation centre. But essentially, we are seeing an increasingly mobilised far-right preying upon the effects – not the causes – of neoliberal policies, including cuts to services, the lack of social housing and persistent levels of unemployment.
What is rarely reported by mainstream media is the poverty and disadvantage created by the privatisation of public services. As President Michael D. Higgins has said in regard to housing: ‘Housing and the basic needs of society should never have been left to the market place’. In the absence of a ‘sustained public discourse’ on neoliberalism, argues Maynooth University’s Elizabeth Meade, citizens are more ‘susceptible to far right rhetoric and disinformation that seems to offer them a narrative that explains their struggle’. In Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein showed how far-right influencers regularly elevated public anger using the effects of neoliberal policies and a hollowed out state, but these same voices rarely point to the economic sources of social and class inequalities, preferring to take aim at the ‘other’ or float dangerous conspiracy theories. A united Ireland must chart an alternative economic path forged by values of social inclusion and economic justice that rejects the false and discredited notion that an unfettered private sector will lift all ships in a sea of prosperity. A 2024 Oxfam report showed how Ireland´s two Irish billionaires have more wealth than the bottom half of the population combined, and the richest one percent hold 35.4 percent of Irish financial wealth. This is the product of fifty years of neoliberalism and an unbroken political consensus in Ireland that there is no alternative to deregulated markets and small government. As Oxfam argues ‘a new social settlement is needed to redistribute wealth, power, work, income, time, care for a more equal society and economy’. This should include greater compassion and solidarity to asylum-seekers who have sought sanctuary in Ireland and to migrant workers who contribute to the economy.
The Irish government has recently reduced the weekly allowance for newly arriving Ukrainian refugees to €38.80 from €220.00 and imposed a 90-day limit on the time they can remain housed by the state. The struggle to accommodate asylum-seekers is part of a national housing crisis caused by a lack of social housing and a rental sector in the grip of the private sector with young people struggling to get a foot on the housing ladder. A total of 14,000 people are homeless in Ireland, of whom 4,000 are children. This is in a country with a 2024 budget surplus of €8.6 billion mostly derived from a ‘windfall’ of corporation taxes from big technology and pharmaceutical companies operating in Ireland. The lack of affordable rental accommodation is forcing 68 percent of young adults in Ireland between the ages of 24 and 30 to live at home with their parents which is well above the EU average of 42 percent.
Academic Rory Hearne argues that the shortage of rental accommodation in Ireland has been caused by key residential and development land assets being sold off to international property investors and vulture funds at knock-down prices. This in turn has seen an increase in rents and tenant evictions which is driving the homeless total. In order to provide emergency accommodation for asylum-seekers, the government has tried to redeploy vacant premises and hotels but many of these properties, like the paint factory in Coolock, have been targeted in arson attacks by local residents.
The asylum system in Ireland is clearly dysfunctional and consigning asylum-seekers, many of whom have risked their lives to escape trauma, human rights abuses and extreme poverty, to extended periods (sometimes years) of uncertainty and mental cruelty in decision-making processes. Asylum seekers are unable to move on with their lives by finding employment, settling into communities, enrolling in education and reuniting with family members from whom they have been separated. We sometimes forget that asylum-seekers from the global South are often fleeing crises mostly of our making in the global North including the climate emergency, conflicts fuelled by western meddling and arms sales, and neoliberal economic policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank. Immigration policies should not force civilians into life threatening boat crossings of the Mediterranean Sea and English Channel. A united Ireland should recall the millions of Irish people over centuries who have found safe haven and made a living and a life in countries across the world. We should provide the same safe harbour to people from the global South.
We should also recall the tremendous social and economic benefits that can arise from immigration for the migrant, the sending country and the host country. The remittances sent by migrant workers to low-and middle-income countries amounted to $647 billion in 2022, overtaking Foreign Direct Investments and Official Development Assistance to these countries. Moreover, migrants boost the economies of their host countries with the OECD finding that migrants promote ‘trade flows of their host economy and boost total imports and exports of their host region’. Additional to these economic benefits is the diversity brought by migration through new languages, lifestyles, faiths and cultures.
While acknowledging the very real logistical problems that hosting large numbers of immigrants can entail in sectors such as housing, education and health, and the brain drain that often impacts low-income countries who lose their brightest and best to emigration. But the realities of conflict, climate change and poverty make immigration an issue that will impact the island of Ireland for many years to come. We can choose to create an immigration system that treats others as we would like to be treated ourselves if forced into the dilemma of emigration or we can maintain the inhumane systems currently in place in Britain and Ireland. As the late Labour MP and minister, Tony Benn, said: “The way a government treats refugees is very instructive because its shows how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it”. Let’s build a united Ireland based upon principles of humanity and social justice, not greed and inequality.
About the author: Stephen McCloskey works in the global education sector in Ireland. He is the author of Global Learning and International Development in the Age of Neoliberalism (Routledge, 2022). He is writing in a personal capacity.
