Soc Dems call on Harris not to act as a commentator on migrant numbers

Vivienne Clarke

The Social Democrats spokesperson on home affairs, Gary Gannon, has called on Tánaiste Simon Harris to act as a legislator, not a commentator, when it comes to the issue of the number of migrants coming to Ireland.

Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Mr Gannon added, “Maybe he’s going down the Nigel Farage route” in response to comments by Mr Harris about the number of migrants remaining in the country despite being refused residency status.

Mr Harris said on Wednesday: "Our migration numbers are too high, and I think that is really an issue that needs to be considered in a very serious way by Government.

"One of the reasons I think they are so high is that there are too many people who come to this country and are told they do not have a right to be here, and it is taking too long for them to leave the country."

Gannon said: “I think if the average punter on the street said that, you would have to say, fair enough, there does seem to be a huge amount of challenges in the system, but this is the second authority of the state, the Tánaiste, at a time when we need calm heads, we need leadership, we need fact-based argument, and he's effectively just speaking as if he's a commentator rather than someone who's supposed to legislate.

“What he could have also said was their numbers this year have also decreased by 40 per cent on last year. He could have talked about the absolute failures in the system that he's presided over for 10 years and how he was going to address them.

"There is absolutely lags within the system people, are being caught up within that for years, but that's a failure of management. We have a management crisis in this country and Simon Harris is fairly much to the fore of responsibility for that."

Gannon said that, coming in the aftermath of the violent protests in City West, he thinks these comments have the potential to be "inflammatory".

"They don't add anything substantial to the debate. They don't talk about the fact that there are people here who have contributed hugely to our country. They don't talk about how we're gonna address the silos in the system.

"And it's also, it's not only in relation to the violent incidents outside City West, it’s a person struggling for relevancy following what happened in the presidential election last week. And I just think he needs to be a hell of a lot more careful than what he's been.”

Fine Gael TD Barry Ward said that the Tánaiste’s comments had been “measured and absolutely factually correct".

“He has identified the fact that we do have massive pressure on our migration system, there's no disputing that. What we also have is huge investment to that system and we have massively reduced the waiting times for the processing of applications, which makes it easier to deal with people coming here seeking a chance.”

Mr Ward said that despite the reductions in the waiting times there were still thousands of people coming to Ireland which led to huge pressure on the system. He acknowledged there were problems with the system, for example with information flows.

“The Department is not nearly frank enough with people in local communities about what's happening. We need to speed up the times, we need to be more effective in terms of when deportation orders have been made, that people are not remaining here for months and months and months, that those orders are given effect.”

Mr Gannon said the Tánaiste should provide leadership. “What he offered yesterday is the absence of that.”

Mr Ward said that if there was to be reasonable debate on the subject then people, including ministers and TDs, should have the right to express their views.

However, Mr Gannon said he could not understand why Mr Harris had made his comments on Wednesday.

“I'm going to have to see in the context of the presidential election, maybe he's trying to go down the Nigel Farage route," he said.