The Irish Won’t Let Ireland’s Immigration Problem Be Ignored

Ireland is protesting, again. Yesterday evening, more than 500 people in Saggart, County Dublin, gathered outside the Citywest IPAS (asylum) centre to demand an end to uncontrolled mass migration. The crowd waved Irish flags, brandished placards with anti-immigration slogans, and chanted “Get them out!” Some threw glass bottles, bricks, and even fireworks at police—at one point, a Garda van was set alight, and a handful of protestors charged on horseback at riot police. So far, the unrest has resulted in six arrests. 

The catalyst for this latest demonstration was the news that a failed asylum seeker had allegedly sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl on the grounds of an asylum hotel. The girl was supposed to be in the care of Tusla, Ireland’s child-protection agency, and is now being treated in hospital. To make matters worse, her alleged attacker, a 26-year-old African man who has been living in Ireland for six years, had been refused international protection last year and was slapped with a deportation order back in March. By all rights, he shouldn’t have been in Ireland in the first place. Yet he was being housed in the 2,500-bed hotel that was recently turned into an asylum centre, despite opposition by the local community. 

These circumstances and the dramatic scenes in Dublin last night will be familiar to many. Ireland has been gripped by violent protests in recent years, sparked by mass migration, rapid demographic change, and the feelings of insecurity this has inflicted upon local communities. In June this year, thousands massed in the Irish capital with banners reading “Ireland is full” and “Ireland for the Irish.” Last summer, too, tensions spilled over outside Dublin, as working-class people protested against the asylum hotels that have been imposed on their local areas. Arson attacks have forced authorities to abandon numerous planned migrant centres across the country. There have also been cases of disgruntled locals taking matters into their own hands and attempting to stop the centres from hosting asylum seekers, organising blockades and cutting off roads. 

The most significant unrest, though, took place in 2023, under disturbingly similar circumstances to yesterday’s riot. That November, Dublin went up in flames, both metaphorically and literally. Furious marchers took to the streets, torching cars and trams. Hundreds of rioters battled against police, in what has been widely described as one of the worst instances of civil disorder in recent Irish history. This anger was the result of a knife attack at a primary school, in which three children and a woman were stabbed—it left a five-year-old girl and the woman, a care assistant, seriously injured. When news of the attack broke, rumours swirled that the man responsible was an asylum seeker. As it turned out, the alleged attacker was Riad Bouchaker, an Irish citizen who was originally from Algeria and who had previously been the subject of a deportation order. He was also known to the authorities and had been caught carrying a knife earlier that year. 

This brought the tensions that had been simmering in Ireland to the surface. Protestors rallied in Dublin to express their outrage that something like this had been allowed to happen—and their anger at their government’s open-borders regime more broadly. Things quickly turned violent, though, with opportunistic thugs hijacking the protest and causing chaos, looting shops and setting the city ablaze. Then, as now, the Irish establishment used these instances of lawlessness as an excuse to dismiss the demonstrations out of hand. Politicians and the media were able to wave the protests away as simply the result of ‘far-right’ hooligans, rather than admit there is a deep-rooted fury among normal Irish people about the impact of mass migration. 

No one can be surprised that this is happening again now. Yet, there is a remarkable reluctance within the Irish establishment to address why these protests keep happening. Ireland’s Justice Minister, Jim O’Callaghan, attempted to reassure Saggart locals by claiming that “there is no ongoing threat to public safety in the area.” There is apparently also “no correlation between the location of IPAS centres and crime levels in a community.” In other words, the people of Saggart should simply ignore their lying eyes and keep their mouths shut. 

There was even what looked to many to be a sinister attempt to blame the 10-year-old girl for her own alleged assault. Tusla publicised the details about her past—that she had been voluntarily surrendered into care by her family due to behavioural issues—and stressed that she had “absconded.” On her return, she informed staff that she had been assaulted. Why or how she was able to disappear without social services retrieving her is still unclear. One article from the BBC about the protests neglected to mention the alleged sexual assault at all. 

So long as the establishment continues to ignore people’s grievances, protests and riots will continue to erupt, both in Dublin and across the country. Ireland has simply been pushed to its breaking point—the native population is not being asked, but told to accept thousands of new arrivals, many of whom the state knows nothing about. These people are placed in small communities that are unable to cope with such a swell in numbers. As it is, welfare and healthcare services are overwhelmed. And, while the rest of the country is currently experiencing a painful housing shortage that sees rents and mortgages skyrocketing, the government is paying roughly €1 billion to privately house asylum seekers. 

Irish people are, understandably, sick of this. They were never asked what they thought about any of this. There was never any referendum on mass migration—and if there were, the results would likely be damning. According to one poll last year, half of Irish voters would like to see a more restrictive immigration policy. Another poll from 2023 found that 75% thought that Ireland had taken in too many refugees. 

However, unlike most other European nations, Ireland has no real way to express anti-immigration sentiment at the ballot box. There are no electorally significant right-wing parties in Ireland, and none of the major parties have made immigration a key priority. This leaves Irish people with few avenues to channel their frustrations through democratic means. While we should not condone the violence or destruction of property that comes from the protests, we equally cannot be surprised that they are happening. 

When a government so blatantly refuses to listen to its people, anger is bound to spill out onto the streets. And when the most vulnerable in a society—in this case, a 10-year-old girl in care—are not being protected, public trust will vanish. If Ireland’s leaders will not confront the costs and consequences of mass migration, the Irish people will make themselves heard anyway. The country should brace for many more nights like Saggart.