Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2023-02-14
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

The Taoiseach says the far right and the far left will exploit the migrant crisis. I am not sure whether he has noticed, but the far right is organising protests outside the temporary, inadequate, emergency accommodation of asylum seekers. What is the far left doing? We are working with others to build a solidarity march to say that refugees are welcome and that these people are not responsible for the housing crisis. I have no idea what the Taoiseach is talking about.
The Taoiseach said people should not use this issue for political advantage and I agree. He will be talking to Senator Regina Doherty, who has spoken about people taking advantage of some of the “frailties in our system". He will be speaking to Fianna Fáil backbencher Deputy John McGuinness, who has called for a plan to move asylum seekers into a Kilkenny city hotel to be paused. He will be having a chat with himself, perhaps, about the use, very conscious, of the terms “fair, firm and hard”, which generated precisely the headlines he wanted.
Ordinary people do not agree with the Taoiseach's Government. They disagree with it for the creation of the housing crisis and for the representation of developers, speculators and so on.
They also do not agree with those who try to exploit those divisions.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-02-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-02-14