Documents released under a Freedom of Information request from Ken Foxe of TheStory.ie provide an interesting insight into the role which is being played by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) in shaping the manner in which the state is dealing with the ongoing refugee crisis.
The documents provide details of a meeting which IHREC Chief Commissioner Sinéad Gibney held with Minister of State Joe O’Brien at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) on February 22 this year, along with an internal draft report that was compiled by the IHREC following an inspection visit to the refugee accommodation centre at Citywest on April 26.
The meeting with O’Brien followed a letter from the Commission to Minister Roderic O’Gorman on January 27 in which the IHREC claimed that the state would be in breach of its obligations under the European Communities (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2018 (S.I. No. 230/2018) and the related European Directive if it refused, as it had threatened, to provide accommodation for single men who had applied for International Protection.
The legislation commits the state to providing anyone claiming asylum here with a whole list of “rights” including social welfare, accommodation, healthcare, education and employment. It ought to be borne in mind that there was no international obligation on the Irish state to adopt such an instrument.
It is, in effect, the bedrock of the system that is being openly abused by opportunistic economic and welfare migrants and which, along with other naïve gestures on the part of the state, is the main driver of the current unstainable levels of immigration.
Although the IHREC accepts that the legislation allows for a situation where housing capacity is exhausted, as it obviously is, they still insist that the state is obliged to provide accommodation. This formed the central part of the demands made by Gibney to O’Brien on February 22.
The disregard of the IHREC for public concerns is clear in its insistence that “even where housing capacity is temporarily exhausted,” that the state must still provide housing for people claiming International Protection. And if necessary that the state “use emergency powers and legislation to build the six reception and integration centres proposed in the White Paper” on Direct Provision.
The Government should also force local authorities to provide “accommodation and services across all counties.” In order that this be made happen the IHREC propose a new state agency because there is going to be no end to the numbers fleeing “war, climate change and persecution [which] will continue to drive people to seek asylum” and oblige the state to plan for “surge capacity.”
Surge capacity no less. The people of Ireland are to become the default bolt hole for every chancer on the planet. Not that the people of Dalkey, where it might wreck the buzz of those attending the lobster festival, will be discommoded. Oh no, put them among the scobes in East Wall and the boggers in Clare.
You can almost taste the contempt here for those questioning the left liberal “narrative” that is relentlessly pushed by the Government, Sinn Féin, the far left, the soft left, the migrant industry NGOs, and the media. All of them insist, nay demand, that anyone who dares dissent will be improved – whether they like it or not – by more diversity than you could shake a stick at.
And lest any of you be under the impression that all the left liberal schtick is just Pollyanna naivety, Gibney dangles the attraction which mass immigration has for the less Woke factions of her class.
Refugees will, of course, help to fill the “well known and well evidenced labour market gaps.” Cheap au pairs, baristas, and cleaners for the bottom-feeding bourgeoisie, and all trifled up in the dystopian blancmange that passes for leftism these times.
It is refreshing in a way to read the notes obtained by Foxe as it illustrates what is an extraordinary level of arrogance on the part of a state stipendiary who was a losing candidate for a minor left liberal party who received 4% of the votes when she put herself forward for election as a candidate for the Social Democrats in the 2019 local elections. In Blackrock, county Dublin. Rejected even by the most Woke of all. The shame of that.
And let us not buy into the pretence that the IHREC is some neutral high-minded body disinterestedly advising Ministers on the best thing to do. It has nailed its banner to the mast on all the issues dear to the left liberals from abortion to transgenderism. It is just another left liberal quango trying to enforce its own diktats on the population, and on a government mainly made up of two parties that appear to have surrendered completely to all this liberal intolerance and contempt for the communities that dare question them.
In the accompanying note to the February 22 meeting, O’Brien is recorded as having apologetically informed Gibney that he was “not optimistic” that the Government would be able to “come back into line” in the near term as regards providing homes for young fellas from Tbilisi and Hackney and Cape Town.
The Government coalition when it decided to draw some sort of line in the sand was responding to genuine concerns regarding the accommodation of single men arriving from Georgia and other safe countries, and despite the claims by Government and opposition and migration NGOs that this was some ploy by the “far right” to incite racism, they admitted between themselves that this welfare opportunism is a problem.
Carol Baxter of DCEDIY informed Gibney and the IHREC that “the accommodation shortage is exclusively relating to single men applying for IP (International Protection). The Department is not experiencing significant difficulties in securing accommodation for Ukrainians, or single women or families applying for IP.”
In their own inspection of the Citywest centre, the IHREC had been told by the manager Tom Talbot about the problems created by the “perceived poor reputation that single men have,” and which was at the root of violent disturbances in Citywest and in other locations. This, of course, is exactly what protestors have said they are opposed being foisted upon their communities – while being slandered by the state and its satellites for expressing their concerns.
Indeed, the “messaging” around all of this was a key focus of Gibney’s demands on the Government. In setting out what needed to be done with regards to “our national narrative,” Gibney pointed to the “high risk” associated with “misleading tropes” which she explained as references to “’men only’ refugee settlement” and issues around “documentation and countries of origin.”
(C) Our National Narrative – it is high risk in the current environment to unintentionally give any succour to false or misleading tropes around refugees, whether related to individual gender focuses or refugee’s motivations. FYI – UK far-right leader Tommy Robinson coming to Ireland this week to support anti refugee protests.
As we know, the proportion of single men from safe countries such as Georgia and the evidence related to the large numbers presenting with no documentation or false documentation are not “tropes.” They are facts recognised by the state itself, as provided in responses to Parliamentary Questions from TDs and to Freedom of Information requests from readers of Gript and others.
So in effect what Gibney was demanding of O’Brien was that the “national narrative” be, how might one put it – “modified”? “retailored”?, “amended”? The brazenness of her reference to “tropes” about country of origin is underlined by the fact that she herself noted that the “three top countries” from where people are claiming asylum are Georgia, Nigeria and Algeria. These are facts, not tropes, not misinformation. Facts. Such as even the spooky partnered fact checkers might even notice.
Gibney’s meeting with O’Brien and his officials concluded with the promise that the IHREC would continue to pay visits to the accommodation centres. They would be looking at “practical improvements” that they would be happy to share with the state as they felt confident that their superior insight can “assist the State response.”
We shall be providing readers with details of one of those visits tomorrow.