While other parties on the soft Left, notably Sinn Féin, appear to be pivoting towards a more “nuanced” position on immigration and related matters – code for having realised the electoral damage that cheerleading the State and the asylum industry caused – Labour appears to be doubling down on the whole thing.
This morning they decided in their wisdom to facilitate yet another self-serving briefing by an NGO in order to muster support for what is clearly a deeply unpopular strategy on the part of the Irish state and its multiple dependents. The theme of which briefing being ‘Lack of housing pathways for refugees – rights and challenges.’
The hootenanny is, or was – depending on what time you read this – hosted by the Labour Party Spokesperson on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Limerick TD Conor Sheehan. The presentation itself was given by the Irish Refugee Council.
According to an email sent to other Oireachtas members who were invited, the event was to consist of two panels both focusing on the rights and challenges of people who have been granted international protection in Ireland in accessing appropriate housing.
The quick transition of the mostly rejected applicants for International Protection into “own key” properties had been the recommendation of the White Paper on Direct Provision. No party and almost no TD dissented from the view that this was the best thing ever when it was published a few years ago. It is rarely spoken of now.
An invitation issued to Oireachtas members by the Limerick TD states that as “housing is critical to the integration of refugees in Ireland,” the briefing will explore key challenges faced by people who have secured status, including barriers to accessing secure housing and the risk of homelessness at these transition points.”
“The first panel will cover beneficiaries and sponsors of family reunification, and the second people with status leaving IPAS. Speakers will include frontline workers, legal experts, and people with lived experience.” Echoes of the halcyon days of 2021 when former Minister for Caring Roderic published the White Paper to general acclaim.
In his invitation, Deputy Sheehan outlined the aim of the presentation as to encourage “TDs and Senators to better understand the patterns of homelessness, and ultimately what steps we can take to address the root causes of homelessness, including legislation and policy reform, the right sized affordable housing in the correct areas and support services.”
The Irish Refugee Council event is not a standalone gig but is apparently part of something called the ‘Understanding Homelessness’ series – an initiative of the Irish Homeless Policy Group.
I had never heard tell of them before, but it would appear to be a fruit of the beginning of term effort to cobble together an alliance of what some would have you believe is the Progressive Left. Which means that the Irish Homeless Policy Group consists of members from Labour, Sinn Féin, and the Social Democrats. It also seems to involve various sectoral and advocacy groups. NGOs in other words.
I am not sure if they invited the communist far left to be part but they demurred if they were. The rest are too cute to be inveigled to add their voices to the demand by the reds that people with spare rooms or big houses be basically forced to surrender them or at best share them as happened to the family of Dr. Zhivago when the predecessors of People Before Profit were in their pomp in Moscow in 1921.
Of course, it would be all the better if the potential squatters were to be asylum seekers as they have more victimhood points than the native homeless. Given that Sinn Féin has now clearly made a decision to avoid any direct association with the sort of slant being pitched by Labour and the IRC, it will be interesting to see how many of their TDs and Senators turned up for the briefing.
They are still smarting over their two thrashings at the polls last year and have realised that the simplistic canard which claims that the shortage and cost of housing and rented accommodation exists in a parallel universe to the massive and growing demands placed on accommodation by immigrants bearing both IPAS certification and work permits does not play in the sticks.