Independent TD Mattie McGrath made a big splash in the Dáil this week when he challenged the wisdom of Ireland’s open borders Ukrainian refugee policy.
McGrath’s comments came after Fianna Fáil House Minister Darragh O’Brien confirmed that there will “not be any caps” on Ukrainian refugee numbers entering Ireland. That is to say, no limit at all – nada, zilch.
If a million Ukrainians showed up on our doorstep tomorrow, O’Brien would be happy to take them all apparently. In fact, he even attacked Independent TD Carol Nolan by accusing her of calling for a reasonable cap on the numbers, like it was an insult, thus demonstrating that the new policy of Ireland is officially now “come one, come all.” As if we needed further evidence of that.
Following this heated exchange, Mattie McGrath took to the Dáil to describe this policy as “PC crap,” responding “yes I do” when asked if he wanted a cap on refugees.
“Other countries are being prudent and looking after their people,” he said.
“I don’t want to see too many [refugees]. We can’t just have open borders.”
Now, what’s remarkable about this is not really what McGrath said. Saying: “We should put a reasonable limit on the amount of people we let into our country” is not a radical position. In fact, it’s the opposite of radical – it’s mundane.
You won’t find a country anywhere on earth, or in any time period in history, which did not employ some sort of common sense border control. Rightwing countries, leftwing countries, centrist countries – every one of them enforces their borders and carefully selects who they will allow in and who they do not.
In fact, having borders you can control is one of the things which defines what a country actually is. To say you have a country with no enforced borders is like saying you have a house with no walls or ceiling. It’s actually incoherent nonsense, it fundamentally doesn’t make sense.
So what McGrath said was far from shocking. What was shocking, however, was the reaction to it.
No sooner had the words passed his lips, than many in the government jumped on him to attack him, including Fine Gael Senator Garrett Ahearn, calling Mattie’s comments “a disgrace.”
As reported by the Irish Independent:
So, to be clear, according to Garrett Ahearn, Mattie and Carol’s view that Ireland should put a cap on refugee numbers is “reckless,” “a disgrace,” “creates fear,” and is not the view of the vast majority of people.
Except, of course, it is the view of the majority. And we know this, because the Sunday Times did a poll on it at the end of April, just a month or so ago.
As reported at the time:
So in fact, Mattie and Carol’s view is actually the majority view, and Garrett Ahearn’s view, no doubt to his horror, is in the minority.
This also means that Garrett has effectively just told the majority of Irish people that their view is “reckless” and “a disgrace,” in true democratic fashion.
But Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are not the only ones out of step with majority, of course. As usual, as soon as McGrath and Carol genuinely opposed official policy, both the government and the supposed opposition locked shields like a Roman phalanx, and proceeded to attack them in unison.
As Sinn Féin TD Kathleen Funchion said on the incident, she wholeheartedly agrees with the Fianna Fáil Housing Minister that Carol was wrong to express the views she did:
Kathleen Funchion gives her support to Darragh O'Brien for trying to shut down Carol Nolan, again reminding us that Sinn Féin will always side with the government in opposition to any genuinely independent voices. pic.twitter.com/LAbYx9waIf
— JRD (@JRD0000) June 23, 2022
So to recap: For the heinous crime of the rural independents saying there should be a cap on refugee numbers – a view which 60% of Irish people agree with – the government have denounced them as “reckless” and “a disgrace,” while Sinn Féin attack that ‘narrative’ as “very rightwing” and promoting “hatred.”
This is what the government and the so-called opposition actually think of the majority of people’s views. In the same way white blood cells relentlessly attack a virus because it’s a foreign entity, the established political order – Sinn Féin included – will team up to swarm all over anyone with a genuinely alternative opinion who dares to open their mouth.
Every day, the gap between the views of the establishment and the Irish public gets larger. And that gap will continue to grow until people start to demand common sense from our leaders, and reject the woke radicalism which has hijacked our entire political system.
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