Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

There is no excuse for an armed group being established. We cannot blame politicians for people who take it upon themselves to set up an armed group and procure weapons and bombs. It is wrong to blame politicians for that. I would simply make that point. That said, the campaign of, in certain respects, far-right terror is a worry. There is no doubt about that. Threats to politicians have increased. Politicians have been threatened by people on that spectrum, so we have to be very careful. I take the Deputy's point about care around language and how we deal with the migration issue, because migration is a very broad church.
Migration has been good for the country. Many people have come to this country to work, to live and to rear families. Many are involved in the health services, technology companies, life sciences, hospitals, you name it. As was articulated earlier, many have lived here long enough that their children are growing up here. Those children are now facing challenges, notwithstanding that they are Irish citizens. They feel that, because of their ethnic background, they are being targeted by people. That is reprehensible and we need to be very clear about that and call that out. I have met with young people who have told me about their experiences of coming home from school or of being afraid to go into town because of their ethnic backgrounds. That is a real concern for us as a society. I think it is foreign to the values of our country and our people.
Deputy Tóibín raised the issue of the young Ukrainian killed in Tusla accommodation. Again, the Deputy has to be careful with his language because he immediately went on to say that the Minister had questions to answer. There is an issue - the Deputy is right - for the international asylum process. I have to be careful in what I say but it seems that, on some occasions, adults can present as minors. However, it is almost impossible for someone in Tusla to tell. It should be remembered that this is not State care. The alternative here would be to allow people to roam the streets or to be on the street. What happened here involved that emergency accommodation for unaccompanied minors, insofar as Tusla could ascertain that they were unaccompanied minors. This is a general trend. There is a worry that, in trying to do the right thing - in this case, Tusla was doing the right thing - in creating emergency accommodation for unaccompanied minors to try to help, that is vulnerable to some adults in terms of ascertaining age and so on if someone is unaccompanied. I am not saying yet that that happened in this case because I have to await the outcome of the case, but it is not fair to blame Tusla entirely for everything to do with situations like this. That is too easy. Deputy Tóibín took exception to Deputy Coppinger's comments about the Aontú youth WhatsApp group but he did the exact same thing in dragging the Minister into it straight away.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12