Sinn Féin's new immigration policy founded on party's republican values, says Cork's Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

After the party's recent worse than expected showing in the June local and Euro elections, Sinn Féin representatives openly said that their message on immigration, which they identified as a key issue with voters, had not been clear enough.  

In the weeks since, the party has gone back to the drawing board to consult its and has published its a new policy on immigration.   

The party's Cork South Central TD, Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, is Social Affairs spokesman for Sinn Féin and was the lead TD in drafting the new policy. 

“In our philosophy, we’re a republican party, we believe people need to be treated with decency. Like most Irish people, we recognise that there are people here fleeing conflict and requiring protection,” said Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire, as he gave an explanation of the policy to The Echo, following a week in which his party had been sharply criticised by their rivals following its new immigration policy launch.

The converse of that is, according to the TD, that if people “are deemed not to be fleeing conflict, decisions have to be made quickly and, if they’re not successful people have to be returned”.

The diagnosis of Sinn Féin is that the current system to process asylum applications is “extremely slow in making decisions and extremely poor in following up”.

“You also have the situation that the accommodation that is being provided is not anywhere near the standard you want to see,” Mr Ó Laoghaire explained.

The resolution of the many issues surrounding immigration will require additional resources, Mr Ó Laoghaire said: “The system needs to be speeded up, we would treble the resources for the International Protection Office and the Appeals Tribunal, we would ensure there’s more follow up when decisions are made in of cross checking with accommodation providers, the Department of Social Protection and employers.

“We also believe in of locating these centres, the Government has made a real mess of how they approach this with communities and this has exacerbated the problems.

“Obviously there are people out there who want to exacerbate the problems no matter what, but we do believe the Government can do better and we are proposing an audit to prescreen whether there are areas that are completely unsuitable in of whether it’s an area of particular social disadvantage and communities are entirely under-resourced and, also, there are issues surrounding transport, healthcare and so on.

“Areas that are completely unsuited would be ruled out. But if the Department identifies an area that might be suitable, and obviously no area is 100% perfect, if the department does decide to proceed with a location, that audit will have identified what additional resources are required.”

Consultation with communities 

The TD said that there should be a standard form of consultation with communities prior to the location of an accommodation centre for international protection applications in their midst: “The kind of consultation that happens is hugely variable, inconsistent in many instances and there’s hardly any consultation with the general public at all — that needs to change, that should include a formal but non statutory consultation giving people an opportunity to make submissions.

“It gives people a fruitful direction to be able to have their opinion and their voice heard in of a location.”

The Sinn Féin TD also pointed to proposals for a bilateral arrangement with neighbouring Britain in of returning international protection applicants to the country in which they first make their application. Another proposal in the Sinn Féin policy is to ensure all applicants for asylum for international protection are treated on the same basis — thus, as soon as the Temporary Protection order for those fleeing from Ukraine (an EU scheme introduced following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022) expires in 2026, applications from Ukrainians would be dealt with on the same basis as those fleeing other conflicts.

Another strand to the Sinn Féin policy is the party’s stated intention to move away from privately owned accommodation for international protection applicants and the intention to build publicly owned facilities, partly to avoid the perception that has arisen of profiteering by some from immigration and also to ensure a consistent standard of accommodation.

Criticism of document 

Since announcing the new policy document, the party has come under fire from both the left and the right over its proposals. Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald had a sharp exchange with an RTÉ interviewer who wanted to know what the estimated cost of their proposed trebling of resources for the International Protection Office would be, where there are currently 400 people working — a doubling of the figure from two years ago.

That estimate has since been provided at €50m.

From the left, the criticism has been that Sinn Féin are buying into a right-wing narrative, that immigration is a problem for society. Cork North Central People Before Profit and Solidarity TD Mick Barry, speaking to The Echo, said: “I am opposed to increasing the number of deportations, changing the way that ‘safe countries’ are designated or increasing the number of people this State forcibly returns to the UK.

“The right promote a narrative which frames immigration as a societal problem — unfortunately Sinn Féin seem to be buying into that narrative.”

The criticism from the right has been noisy, especially on social media. They would like communities to have a veto over who comes into their areas — Sinn Féin insists their proposals do not amount to a veto.

“There was an obligation on us to clarify our position,” Mr Mr Ó Laoghaire said. “Clearly people did not understand it and we are keen, over the coming weeks and months, set out our stall on a variety of issues.

“We’re not terribly dissimilar to the vast bulk of Irish people and what they’re saying is, and there is a diversity of opinion, most people think that where people are genuinely fleeing conflict and oppression that they do deserve to be offered some protection.

“But they also believe that the rules need to be applied and enforced, there is that mixture of common sense and common decency that people have and that’s where we’re coming from.

“Obviously there will be people on the right who believe that nobody should come here no matter what they’re fleeing and there are people on the left who are trying to suggest, in some instances, that this is not an issue and it doesn’t come up on the doorsteps.

“I think people on the left, including ourselves, have an obligation to have answers to these questions.

“There is a balance to be struck....I don’t believe it can be said that the system works at the minute where you see 18-month delays, people in tents and people in dreadful conditions.”