Paul Hopkins: Hatred and mayhem where the streets have no shame

When Dublin frontline workers were dealing with the stabbing of two schoolgirls and their childcare minder and its aftermath, many people started to discuss the unfolding events on social media. Much of the conversation related to the attacker’s nationality and motive. He is in police custody, believed to be Algerian and has lived here for 20 years.

Anti-immigration rhetoric has been gaining support in recent months – something that was undeniable at violent protests outside Leinster House back in September. Organisers of that protest used hashtags like #IrelandIsFull and #EnoughIsEnough. Attacking Leo Varadkar’s house and he himself was mentioned online during last week's events.

The senseless and horrific murder of Ashling Murphy in January 2022 was invoked almost immediately to put forward anti-immigrant sentiment, including comments by high-profile figures such as Conor McGregor.

To deal with the marauding gangs that attacked Gardai and shops in the wake of the stabbings, calling for the heads of Drew Harris and Helen McEntee is so not the answer. More Gardai on our streets is the answer and harsher jail time.

However, according to Garda sources, policing just isn’t a very attractive career these days – and the most immediate result is a lack of frontline Gardaí to tackle crime on our streets.

An Garda Síochána has a total strength of 14,133 – its lowest figure since 2018. The 2022 Budget provided funding to hire an extra 1,000 but only 116 actually enlisted. The same year, a record 109 Gardaí resigned along with 340 retiring on age or health grounds.

It was once considered a well-paid job, but now even a Garda in their sixth year gets a basic salary of €44,875. Imagine trying to get a leg up the property ladder on that.

There is, of course, the argument that these marauding gangs – and they are not all young people – feel disenfranchised because of poverty, social disadvantage and/or addictions. That too should be part of the debate. As should our capacity to accommodate refugees, in growing numbers and financially too.

However, something else, more sinister, is fuelling this mob mindless actions. The alt-right, from a base of virtually zero a decade ago, has grown to a notable, albeit still relatively small, political presence here. The combined vote for the far-right here has barely reached 1.3% but in other European countries they do much better.

In his book Diverse Republic (Dublin University Press 2022), Bryan Fanning, Professor of Migration and Social Policy at UCD, examines the nature of antipathy to immigration in Ireland and its potential to be politically exploited. He argues Ireland has tended to be more outward-looking and that the North's conflict gave us a different perspective on ethnic nationalism.

"We have the same tendencies as other people, and yet we have a politics without extreme racism. Racism does exist in Irish society, just as in other societies, and it’s fair to say that Ireland’s institutions don’t serve people of colour or Travellers as well as the white majority."

As a relatively small country, Ireland became very educated and very liberal quite fast. "We didn’t have an industrial revolution in the standard sense, going from farmers to post-industrial in one step," says Fanning. In England, Hungary and Poland, the far-right claim ownership of what it is to be English, Hungarian or Polish, but Irish people in all our diversity are no longer drawn to the type of Irishness that may have been embodied by de Valera.

Our 'patriotism' has been built around our healthy economy which goes some way to explaining that youth feeling of being disenfranchised.

In recent months, local community groups across the country – Kilkenny included – have expressed concerns over their area’s capacity to house a sudden influx of hundreds of people and the lack of consultation with the

State. But these groups, as a whole, aren’t calling the migrants ‘invaders’.

Far-right activists here – and let's reiterate they are small in number – advocate for an Ireland that is a monocultural nation for white Irish people only. Sadly, they demonstrate these 'beliefs' by describing minorities online and elsewhere with dehumanising language, using disinformation to incite tensions.

Before the Oireachtas we have a new law purporting to banish ‘hate speech’. The Incitement to Hatred Bill 2022 has passed the Dáil and is before the Seanad. No doubt, this was conceived with the best of intentions and may, hopefully – or, indeed inadvertently, may not – go some way to prevent both verbal and physical assaults on people out of a sense of venomous hatred.