Protests against the location of asylum seekers to Roscrea have hit the news headlines after clashes broke out at the Racket Hall hotel.
The protests are directed at the wrong target. Eighteen women and children had to pass a hostile gauntlet of people who claimed they were depriving them of facilities.
Protests such as those in Roscrea were originally stoked up by far-right elements who borrowed their rhetoric from the US and Britain to whip up scare stories about ‘unvetted men’. It was a lie designed to whip up racism.
But the rhetoric is now expanding to include all asylum seekers and migrants.
The latest big lie is that ‘Ireland is full’. This is despite the fact that there are over 150,000 vacant homes and the country has one of the lowest population densities in Europe.
Of course, we need more houses and public services, but the government is to blame for not providing them – not asylum seekers or migrants.
Roscrea DOES suffer from deprivation and a lack of facilities. Despite the big talk of people like Michael Lowry, who regularly boasts about his deals for North Tipperary, the town is suffering from a lack of jobs and facilities.
Yet this was happening well before asylum seekers and none of the local TDs such as Lowry, Mattie McGrath, or even Sinn Féin’s Martin Browne organised protests.
Far easier to target vulnerable people who are fleeing war.
Large numbers of migrants have made Roscrea their home for years, well before the current event. Far from taking services from local people, they have contributed to the town. So instead of pretending that a new influx of people is a ‘burden’ we need to ensure they have every right to contribute.
• That means giving asylum seekers an immediate right to work.
• It means building a real movement to force the government to provide real facilities for Roscrea.
• Top of the list should be a public facility – not one owned by a private company that only wants profit – for people to socialise and hold functions.
Instead of targeting those who have fled war, let’s work together, Irish and migrant, to target a government that only looks after the wealthy and their own friends.
