Minister for Justice Simon Harris calls anti-immigration protests ‘thuggish, mobbish, intimidatory behaviour’

Groups gathering in the streets calling for the removal of migrants from the Republic, shouting “get them out”, were not “protestors” and were more akin to an intimidating mob, Minister for Justice Simon Harris has said.

“It irks when it’s called protest because some of what we’ve seen has been thuggish, mobbish, intimidatory behaviour,” he said. “When you’re standing outside someone’s home or shelter, including those of children, and shouting ‘get them out’ and worse, that’s not protest in my view. I don’t think it’s protest in the view of any decent person of sound mind.”

He was “acutely attuned to some of the individuals behind these protests and some people who move from town to town and county to county trying to stoke up division”. However, there was a difference between “that thuggish far right behaviour” and others in a local community seeking “better information from Government“.

[ Opinion: The immigration genie is out of the bottle and cannot be simply wished back in ]

[ 200 gather in Ballyfermot for demonstration in support of asylum seekers ]

Mr Harris said he was motivated to “push back” against misinformation being spread about migrants. He insisted he would not “allow a vacuum to appear” as Ireland had welcomed and sheltered many people within what he described as a “compassionate and rules-based” migration system. He believed telling people about the rules and procedures was “not a bad thing to do” because “a small handful of individuals” would seek to “misinform the Irish people instead.”

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The Government recently stated it would accelerate decisions on international protection applicants. The International Protection Office is being given more staff and it is envisaged decisions on applications made by people from safe countries of origin would be made within three months, rather than 17 to 24 months, as has been the case until now.

Mr Harris accepted a “structure” was required to provide information to people about migration and migrants amid the spread of misinformation at present.

Misinformation

Mr Harris was speaking an a meeting of the joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice on Tuesday afternoon. He was responding after Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin put it to him that, given the increase in false information surrounding migrants, it was time for a “Covid-style” publicity campaign by the Government. This could combat misinformation in the same way information around Covid-19 and vaccines ensured anti-vax or anti-mask groups did not gain a significant foothold in Ireland during the pandemic.

Mr Ó Ríordáin said he was aware of a leaflet being circulated, with the Rialtas na hÉireann name and logo, in parts of Dublin informing households “girls should not be out after 6 o’clock” because of the dangers posed by migrant men. He wondered where the Government’s leaflet was to counter that information, like some of the literature circulated to inform communities during the pandemic.

Mr Ó Ríordáin added he had encountered the same kind of misinformation during the Citizens Referendum in 2004 and it was “poisonous” - yet the same “festering poison” was back again and “going mainstream”.

“I don’t recognise [Dublin] any more. We are now in a massively dangerous moment where... we are at a crossroads. You have children at these protests”.

He pointed out it was claimed last week buses parked in Santry, Dublin, had brought migrant men into the area when they had in fact been used to being children to an athletics meeting. An attack at Howth Junction Dart station, carried out two years ago, was wrongly attributed to migrants amid claims it was a very recent incident.