Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said she’s “certainly not” in favour of open borders during an interview on RTÉ radio this morning.
Asked if it was her party’s position that Ireland should not accept anymore asylum seekers and refugees she said, “I don’t know anybody who is in favour of open borders, I’m certainly not.” she said adding, “We have rules based system and you can have a view as to its efficiency, how it’s resourced, how it might change, but you shouldn’t pretend that it doesn’t exist.”
Responding to the government’s handling of Ireland’s intake of refugees and asylum seekers, she said “I understand fully that government made a mistake from the get go in not having proper consultation and communication with communities.”
McDonald criticised what she called a lack of governmental effort to engage with locals before sending refugees and asylum seekers into their communities saying that proper consultation was needed.
This she said should not have consisted of “simply dropping leaflets or last minute briefings with corporate reps, but going into communities and talking to people,”
“I think this has been a huge, huge error,” she said adding, “We said this from the get go to the minister and the government, not to go without in a proactive way, and unfortunately, we’re seeing the outworking of that now in communities where there is anxiety and angst and a feeling of being disrespected and ignored for others of feeling fear,”
McDonald said the government should have engaged with “good people” involved in youth work, sporting organisations, and community development calling these “constructive decent people for whom the inn is not full,”
She said a consequence of this lack of engagement has been to “embolden a very small number of people who believe that they can bully everyone else up to an including setting fire [to the hotel in Galway]”
Asked what steps would be taken if recent comments made by Fianna Fáil Cllr. Séamus Walsh came from a member of Sinn Féin, McDonald said, “there would be a disciplinary process,”.
‘As public representatives’ she said, “our job is to ensure that every person is heard and recognized and safe and is treated respectfully.” adding that “nobody should contribute to a cycle of negativity and and a sense of fear.”
McDonald said the government’s handling of the migrant influx was “shambolic” saying that they had “for a decade and more” not responded to the needs of Irish people in need of affordable housing.
“If your child is raising their own child in the box room of your family home on the one hand, and then you hear that others are coming to the country and you see equally no plan, you see chaos on a shambles.” she said adding that people thinking “where does that leave me?” was a “legitimate question”.
“That is not a racist expression.” she said continuing, “That is a human expression of vulnerability and in some cases, desperation.
“These are human beings and families and communities on the one hand, and others who come from deeply vulnerable positions for whom the government equally has no plan and no accommodation.” she said adding, “ Nobody wins there.”
McDonald said that those who should be held accountable are not people who have been left ‘without a solution’ to their housing needs but the government who she accused of having “no plan”.