With immigration now recognised by most people, candidates and media alike, as one of if not the main issues being raised by punters, the Mayor of South Dublin, Independent Councillor Alan Edge, has laid out his stall.
At an event held at Tallaght Stadium on Tuesday evening, Edge launched his Mayor’s Charter on Those Seeking Asylum. According to a report in the Dublin People the Mayor stressed the fact that “Irish people understand migration, it is in our DNA.”
Some might consider this to be only tangentially related to the issue of International Protection as one could count on one hand the number of Irish people who have ever availed of this. At least the Mayor is sticking to his guns while others desperately try to find out what voters are thinking so that they can revise their own previously expressed thoughts on the issues involved.
The Charter is similar to the Anti-Racism Protocol whose main promoter over several election cycles has been the Irish section (INAR) of the vastly funded European Network Against Racism, who I have examined previously. That document is a clear attempt by a small leftist group to set the parameters for electoral debate and was dismissed as such by Independent Ireland TD Michael Collins who told Gript that that the document itself makes assumptions based on race.
Mayor Edge’s Charter is not as overt in seeking to pin candidates and others to a specific ideological platform but it is clearly based on the assumption that contested notions that are the subject of debate are received truths. Among those is the claim that migration, and bear in mind the Charter specifically related to migrants seeking International Protection, is a “net positive in economic and societal terms.” There is no proof included that this is the case, least of all with regards to economic factors.
The INAR protocol for the 2020 general election was signed by all of the current coalition parties, by Sinn Féin, Labour, People Before Profit, Social Democrats and the smaller far left parties. The INAR site does not have a similar list for those, if any of the parties and candidates, who have endorsed the 2024 Protocol.
The Dublin People report claims that 77 community groups have already signed the Charter but there are no details of candidates in South Dublin who have added their names.. The only sitting Councillors who took the chance to step into the photograph at the launch were Eoin Ó Broin of the Social Democrats and Independent Councillor Francis Timmons.
I am not sure if there were any Sinn Féin candidates at the launch. If there were, they were unusually camera-shy for people seeking electoral office. However, Sinn Féin Councillor Sarah Holland – who finished behind Edge in the Firhouse-Bohernabreena ward in 2019 on just 6.5% of the first preferences but is contesting again – tweeted that she was “very proud” to sign the Charter which she said is “about fairness, peace, kindness and opposing hate and misinformation.”
Unless you are Peter Casey, of course, whom Holland advised in 2018 to “go back to Amity Island.” (This being a reference to Casey’s apparent likeness to actor Murray Hamilton who played Mayor Vaughan in the 1975 movie Jaws.) Holland thought this best on account of Casey’s “lackadaisical stupidity.” What happened to all the kindness, Sister?
I contacted the office of South Dublin County Council and of the Mayor himself requesting information on which candidates and organisations had signed the Charter. No response had been received prior to publication.