Ireland - Tens of Thousands March in Dublin to Support Refugees

[Blazhe]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ir...refugees-march

'Ireland For All': Tens of Thousands March in Dublin to Support Refugees
"There are enough resources in this country for everyone to have a decent home, job, and services and welcome refugees," said one progressive lawmaker.


host n host plzen

Demanding an "Ireland for All," tens of thousands of Irish people on Saturday marched through Dublin to make clear their opposition to recent violent attacks on migrants and rallies claiming the country "is full" and can't accept refugees.

Carrying signs reading, "Protect Lives, Not Borders" and "Everyone Is Welcome," the demonstrators on Saturday called on the federal and city government to ensure there is enough housing for everyone and to address the cost-of-living crisis—which advocates said the far-right is exploiting to drum up anti-immigration sentiment.

A rise in racism across Ireland "has been deliberately been stoked up by organizers of the far-right," Bríd Smith of the ecosocialist group People Before Profit told The Independent. "We had [cost-of-living] crises long before refugees came, long before the Ukrainian war."

The rally was organized by the rights coalition Le Cheile, along with groups including United Against Racism, National Women's Council of Ireland, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and the Union of Students Ireland.

Many participants spoke out about the need for public and affordable housing, which they said should be prioritized over expensive new developments.

"All around the city we see cranes building more offices, hotels, and flash apartments for rental only as our government welcomes vulture and hedge fund capitalists into Ireland," said musician Christy Moore. "What we need is social housing."

Housing and rental prices have more than doubled in the past decade in Ireland. A poll commissioned last month by Aldi Ireland found that 77% of people in the country are concerned about affording essentials as the price of food, electricity, and fuel skyrocket.

Late last month, a group of Irish men attacked an encampment inhabited by several migrants from India, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, and Scotland. They descended on the camp with baseball bats, sticks, and dogs and shouted, "Get out... Pack up and get out now."

Also in January, the far-right applauded rallies that broke out in Dublin and surrounding towns, with attendees declaring Ireland is "for the Irish."

Paul Murphy, a People Before Profit-Solidarity politician who represents Dublin South West, called Saturday's rally "a powerful response to the attempts to spread division and hate."

"There are enough resources in this country for everyone to have a decent home, job, and services and welcome refugees," said Murphy. "We need to unite against those who currently hoard that wealth."

[Incal]

That's today's problem everywhere: Polarization. There should be a referendum where it's agreed that refugees can only be sent to the woke majority towns/cities/states that want them and can not leave those areas.

[frankhammer]

Tens of thousands is the number self-reported by the protest organisation. The police described the numbers as thousands.

[Grace O'Malley]

That's all blather though. 56% of people polled last weekend agreed with the sentiment that ireland has taken too many ‘refugees’ over the past 12 months. A further 14% said they ‘don’t know’.
The Irish Government won't be able to ignore these protests.

Ireland has an immigration problem. Almost a year after refugees started to arrive from Ukraine, leaving state capacity buckled and local communities unnerved, two very different expressions of civic disorder have emerged. In one, migrants are housed in cubicle dorms in office buildings or, even worse, in tents. In the other, grassroots anti-migrant protests are sweeping across the country, rallying around the slogan “Ireland is Full”. There were 307 anti-migrant protests in 2022, while 2023 has already seen 64. At the latest demonstration in Dublin, on Tuesday, more than 2,000 protestors took to the streets.

One of the principal motivating factors behind Ireland’s anti-migrant protests concerns a number of reports of migrants mistreating women and even young children. Last week, for instance, a male migrant allegedly walked into Temple Street Children’s Hospital and announced that he wanted to rape children. This week, a migrant was charged by the Gardai with the sexual assault of a teenage girl.

A few days earlier, unfounded rumours circulated about a migrant from a camp in Finglas sexually assaulting a woman. The impact of such incidents is borne out in national polls: in one recent survey carried out by The Business Post, only 38% of women supported building new homes for migrants, compared to 55% of men. As The Irish Independent noted: “The view that Ireland has taken in too many refugees is notably stronger among women in working-class communities.”

One interesting thing is that it is Sinn Fein voters who are mostly opposed to these refugees which is in opposition to Sinn Fein's party stance.

Amid such a politically hostile climate, Sinn Féin’s detachment from its anti-migrant working-class base is starting to open the door to something modern Ireland has never experienced: Right-wing populist parties, the most prominent being the Irish Freedom Party (IFP). Led by Hermann Kelly, an ally of Nigel Farage, the IFP has primarily campaigned for an Irish exit from the EU since it was founded in 2018. It should be stressed that it remains on the margins of Irish politics and is yet to register any serious uptick in the polls. But Kelly and the IFP are starting to position themselves as the party of the protestors, and it seems unlikely that they won’t be listened to. At the recent Shelbourne Hotel protest, for example, IFP Chairman Michael Leahy gave a prominent speech, no doubt hoping to encourage former Sinn Féin voters to switch to his party.

These questions are yet to be answered, but it is not inconceivable that the energy of the anti-migrant protests will converge around the IFP. Perhaps the next election won’t mark IFP’s ascendence — but if conditions stay the same or deteriorate, Sinn Féin could find itself staring at an exodus of voters for whom Right-wing populism is suddenly palatable.

https://unherd.com/2023/02/the-rise-...rant-protests/

People have genuine concerns and it is especially around undocumented migrants.

[Cristiano viejo]

The Catalan retard, forgive the redundance, defending mass immigration lmao, no surprise why Catalonia is full of Muslims.

[Grace O'Malley]

One important issue also is you can have a welfare state or you can have open borders. You can't have both. Anyway this sort of stuff was easy to see happening. Social cohesion in Europe is an issue that needs to be looked at.

[NSXD60]

Welcome O ye last replacement,
All's well now with all our race spent!

[Anglo-Celtic]

That's nice. I heard that a million chickens marched in support of Colonel Sanders.

[sean]

lel.

[Grace O'Malley]

lel.

I don't understand the mentality of that? It's obviously not an Irish face. Are people so ashamed of their ethnicity? That's what it smacks of to me. Pretend you are not what you are.