Migration: It's Time To Stop Blaming The Victims

Ireland is full. Full of disinformation that is, plus inept politicians and frustrated citizens pointing the finger at migrants. That nasty slogan, chanted at riots and protests across the country over the last few years, does highlight complicated truths.

Housing is stretched beyond breaking point. So is Direct Provision, a system where people escaping traumatic experiences live in rooms with strangers, are prevented from working and have to live on less than 40 quid a week. Laying blame on migrants for the country’s problems is like blaming the rain for a leaking roof.

The housing crisis is a failure birthed by government inaction, under-building, land hoarding, dereliction, and NIMBYism. Asylum seekers, the people on the receiving end of most anti-immigrant rhetoric, have not caused any of this. Nor is there reliable evidence that they are more likely to be involved in crime than the Irish. They aren’t.

It’s not just a topic of debate in Ireland. Opportunists have goose-stepped into similar frustrations across the world. At home, we’ve got figures like neo-nazi Justin Barrett, as well as the softer-spoken Catholic-Nationalist rhetoric of Aontú. Even Simon Harris has said we’ve got too much immigration lately, despite it being his party who’ve had since 2011 to fix housing.

Justin Barrett

But whether it’s those gombeen men or the multitude of foreign-based ‘Irish patriot’ accounts on X, the playbook is the same: redirect anger at people who have less power, wealth, and protections than anyone screaming at them from across the barricade.

The hypocrisy is staggering at times.

Many chanting “protect women and children” are the very people who’ll defend Conor McGregor, or celebrate sacraments of the Catholic Church, an institution with a documented, horrific record of failing Irish women and children.

You can wave all the tricolours you wish. Migration isn’t slowing down. The world is experiencing some of the highest levels of displacement ever recorded. Wars, famines, authoritarianism, and climate-driven disasters have pushed more than a hundred million people from their homes, according to the UNHCR. Most of this instability can be traced back to the global north. To colonialism, resource extraction, arms sales and environmental damage. Ireland did not cause these crises, but we’re still part of a wealthy world that benefits from the structures that did.

Even migrants who aren’t leaving extreme scenarios, but are simply seeking a better life, are only doing what Irish people have done for centuries, and are still doing now. We need migration anyway. Without it, hospitals would lose staff, agricultural and construction sectors would stall, and the tax base would shrink. The country would collapse.

Ireland should stop being full. Of excuses. Migrants are the carers, students, entrepreneurs, taxpayers and neighbours who help keep the country running. Blaming them won’t build a single house or make your shopping cheaper.

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