Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said it is “profoundly wrong and profoundly dangerous” to conflate crime, and in particular violence against women, with migration.
Mr Varadkar told the Dáil on Wednesday that he needed “a bit of help” from TDs in setting out the State’s immigration policy and the facts around it.
The Taoiseach was responding to Independent TD Marian Harkin during Leaders’ Questions, who said she wanted to raise “the national conversation”, which was “a difficult one”, around single men who are seeking asylum and where communities said they would welcome and integrate families but “not groups of single men”.
“The knee-jerk reaction is this is unacceptable, it’s racist, these are far-right tropes,” she said.
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“But I’m asking for a little bit of reflection and to cast your mind back just two years ago, when thousands of visceral statements from so many Irish women followed the horrific murder of Ashling Murphy.
“I still remember some of the comments from Minister Anne Rabbitte, who said in this House not all men, but all women grow up knowing they are not safe. Not all men, but all women know the feeling that creeps up your back when you hear steps behind you and you have to check.
“She told us by simply existing women’s lives are at risk from men they know and men they do not know. We believed women two years ago when they made these statements about Irish men, so I’m asking you: why do we not at least entertain those statements from women now when they say the idea of 30, 40, 50 single asylum seekers arriving in their town or village, living three or four to a room?
“No family connections, nothing to do most of the time, why do we not take on those concerns as genuine? Now, let me be crystal clear. There is no evidence, zero evidence, none that they pose any greater threat than 80 Irish men.
“But many women have said to me, and I believe them, that they would say the same thing about 80 Irish men in the same circumstances.”
[ Pat Leahy: This is exactly the right time for a conversation about migrationOpens in new window ]
In response, Mr Varadkar said he was “disappointed” in the question put forward by Ms Harkin and believed other TDs agreed with him.
“I think the killing and the death of Ashing Murphy was one of those events that really touched the nation,” he said.
“I remember it so well and the outpouring of grief for that young woman who was killed in the way she was and I remember the anniversary only a few weeks ago. I really think to connect that to a debate about international protection and migration is really wrong.
“The evil person who killed poor Ashling Murphy [Jozef Puska] was an EU citizen, had been in the country for the best part of 10 years, working and paying taxes. That’s how he acquired his rights to social welfare and other things and sadly, he turned on that girl for whatever reason and killed her.
“But to connect that to international protection and refugees coming to this country, whether genuine or not, is really wrong, Deputy. Don’t bring our country down into that spiral.”
Ms Harkin said she was disappointed the Taoiseach didn’t engage or respond to the “real concerns that I hear from people”.
She said that at the last public meeting she attended “vile slurs” were spoken against migrants. “I was the only public rep who called them out,” she said.
“There were members of your own party at that meeting who shut their mouths.”
Mr Varadkar added that people from all sorts of backgrounds, all genders, and all sorts of races, religions and colours commit crimes.
“But to conflate crime and violence against women in particular with migration I think is profoundly wrong and profoundly dangerous,” he said.
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