Deporting care-workers, from a country crying out for care-workers !! I raised this before in the Dáil, and again the other day. The Minister provided some soothing words, but what will actually happen to these people? and others who’s lives have been torn apart by war, famine, poverty? We should shelter people, as we sought shelter in other countries in our Famine years, and after.
Can you believe it? An asylum seeker who put herself and her health on the line to help during Covid, in a nursing home, is being denied the right to remain in Ireland and is threatened with deportation. And she’s not the only care-worker affected this way. It’s not only shameful, its stupidity of the highest order.
WATER IS NOW BEING RATIONED. That’s in the Skellig Star Hotel, in Cahirsiveen, which is being used as a Direct Provision centre, despite it being described as ‘completely inappropriate’ by a public health official. 32 residents are in the third day of hunger strike. I named the owner in the Dáil this morning, and the fact that I named him seems to have been of greater concern to Varadkar than the welfare of the asylum seekers.
The radio programme is live-streamed, so visual quality is imperfect. Here are clips of Brid discussing the new report on children involved in crime, discussion of refugees and of the ex FG TD (2 Jobs) Dara Murphy.
Topics covered include climate issues and discussion on racism and refugees.
The well fed, well clad, Noel Grealish TD will probably never know what its like to be hungry or cold or fearful of his life, not the way thousands of refugees do. He was leader one time of the PDs, a right-wing split from Fianna Fáil, champions of privatising everything. And now he wants people to blame migrants for what he and the likes of him did to this country. A vile man.
I welcome the move to define what ‘family’ means for refugees, and I welcome refugees and their families – just as the Irish needed a ‘welcome’ in our darkest days. And I condemn the actions of fascist sympathisers outside the gates of the Dáil as we speak, the ‘Irexit’ bullies who assembled to ‘do down’ these vulnerable people.
Brid Smith, Richard Boyd-Barret and Gino Kenny, the People Before Profit TDs, launched their poster (27.4.18) urging a YES vote in the Referendum on Repeal of the 8th amendment to the constitution. This video is of Brid explaining the implications of the 8th for assylum seeking women at the press conference.
Imagine what it’s like to have to leave your home to avoid war, persecution or grinding poverty. You risk your life getting to safety; many of those with you are drowned, or captured and enslaved. Then you reach the ‘free world’ of the EU and you’re banged up in a detention centre for years, no work, no study, no life. Finally the day comes and your host country – Ireland – says ‘ok you can work, but in a very limited number of jobs, if you pay us €1000 first’. Minister Flanagan – you shame us with this ‘reform’ for assylum seekers.
END THE INHUMAN TREATMENT OF MIGRANTS! We discussed refugees, assylum seekers and related issues today in the Dáil. I referred to the misery endured by migrants in Ireland and globally, forced by war, famine and poverty to leave their homes; the wars often caused by the big Western powers and their allies – like Saudi Arabia. These migrants deserve our respect and support – not the cruelty of Direct Provision centres, or as exploited labour in poorly inspected industries – like fishing. Migrants can contribute to society – they must be allowed to so do