Fine Gael senator calls for public information campaign on asylum seekers
Vivienne Clarke
Fine Gael Senator Regina Doherty has said that the Irish public need to know that people will not be allowed to take advantage of the Irish system and that the State will not accept people who arrive without a legal basis for doing so.
“Traffickers” will be dealt with firmly and not allowed to abuse the “frailties” in the system, she told Newstalk Breakfast.
“I think the Irish people need to know that if we are the land of a thousand welcomes, we also need to make sure that people who are taking advantage of some of the frailties in our system won’t be left to remain,” she said when asked about comments made by the Taoiseach.
“They will be subject to deportation orders. Definitely, with regard to traffickers who we know are making vast amounts of money off people’s despair and disadvantaged situations, they need to absolutely be dealt with."
Far-right narrative
Senator Doherty said the Government’s failure to bring forward an effective public information campaign on asylum seekers was feeding into the far-right narrative.
“In the absence of any public information campaign, all that reasonable, normal people who have normal concerns are listening to are TikTok videos being sent around on WhatsApp groups.
“There are a lot of outrageous claims being made on them and I think it is causing heightened fears and maybe a spike in anti-refugee sentiment. We need somebody saying, ‘no, this is what the reality is, this is what our immigration system looks like, it is certainly not perfect, but this is how we manage.
This is why our accommodation and refugee accommodation crisis is spiking at the moment.’
“If we don’t talk to people and tell people in the middle what we’re trying to do, well then all we’re left with is the disinformation and perfectly normal, reasonable people are believing this disinformation.”
The Government needs to make someone responsible for communicating with the public on the issue, she urged.
“It doesn’t appear that anybody is responsible for talking to the public. That is a real concern I have.
Somebody needs to be responsible for it, because if they don’t, and if they don’t do it soon, the people we are representing are going to be led by people who have a hidden agenda of hatred.
“I think that is a really dangerous place to be. If we haven’t learned from any of those things, we are going to be entering a spring and summer and autumn and winter of discontent because ignoring the Irish people’s concerns is going to be a foolish thing to do,” she said.
