Harris: 'A lot of the people of Ireland, through their vote, rejected extremism in the last general election'

The rise of Ireland’s far right has personally affected Tánaiste Simon Harris, with masked demonstrators gathering on several occasions last year outside his Greystones home.

One particular incident — the then taoiseach objected to calling it a protest — occurred at bedtime for his two small children.

Asked whether Ireland’s housing crisis has afforded the far right fertile ground, Mr Harris fetched from his desk a book, The Centre Must Hold — Why Centrism is the Answer to Extremism and Polarisation, edited by Yair Zivan.

“I passionately believe in that. I feel a real obligation, as a leader of a centrist party in government, somebody who has been taoiseach, somebody who will be taoiseach, for the centre to deliver, because if the centre doesn’t deliver, it can create a vacuum, and we’ve seen this in many countries,” he said.

“Let’s be honest, we’ve had a general election in Ireland, and I think a lot of the people of Ireland, through their vote, rejected extremism in the last general election.

“So that’s encouraging. I also, though, believe that a lot of people who voted for the current government parties, if they could have written a message on the ballot paper, they’d say, ‘I’m voting for you, but do better this time on certain key issues’.

“Housing being one of them, migration being another one.”

Ireland has benefited greatly from migration, Mr Harris said, but migration has to have rules.

“If you come here and you have a right to come here, you should be supported, welcomed in, integrated, and then be able to work and make your way and make a positive contribution to Ireland.

“But, equally, if you come here and you don’t have a right to be here, you do need to be asked to leave more quickly, in the first instance, and then if you don’t leave, we need to ensure you leave.”

Although he believed the centre held in November’s election, he warned against complacency.

“We saw what happened in Ballymena, we’ve seen what happened with the Dublin riots; there is a need to come together to tackle what is racist thuggery.”

He cautioned that there was “a very big difference between decent people of our country having legitimate questions and debate and views on migration” and the far right.

“People raising concerns about their community, asking questions, that’s perfectly legitimate. That’s not far right, but people who seek to divide and be hate-filled, that is far right.”

The man once referred to as ‘The TikTok Taoiseach’ admitted to being conflicted about the role of social media, seeing it as a force often for democratisation, information, and connectivity.

“But also, it can fuel the spread of misinformation and disinformation so quickly, and that’s sometimes what the political system and the State more broadly, and institutions, can struggle to deal with.

“We saw what happened recently with a shooting incident, where misinformation was spread about the person’s nationality, which just wasn’t true, it just was a lie, but it was spread thousands upon thousands of times.

“The guards acted very swiftly in putting out a statement, but no matter how swift you act, it’s very hard to keep up with that.”

He receives more than his share of abuse online. Does it get to him?

“Without giving amplification to it, there have been the odd, well-documented times where there’s been threats, or references to my family or the likes, and that gets to me. But in general, no.

“I think the people of this country are overwhelmingly decent,” he said.

“Wherever I go, I meet decent people, people who’d vote for you, people who’d never vote for you in a month of Sundays. And both are OK, and both will be decent.

“And then there’s the online people, some of them won’t even put their picture to their name, they’ll lie behind anonymity, and best of luck to them, but that’s not going to make any sort of positive contribution.”