There is a question that hovers over Irish politics: what will the parties of power do when they start to panic about losing it? Last week, after their joint debacle in the presidential election, we got the grim answer: turn on immigrants.
One of the reasons the far right has been less potent in Ireland is that most mainstream politicians have been responsible in their utterances on immigration. The Government parties have not followed their centrist counterparts in other countries by trying to compete on the terms set by ethnonationalist reactionaries. Until now.
Last week, the Tánaiste Simon Harris said: “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 th
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