Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has defended the controversial direct provision system for housing asylum seekers and said “it is not the same thing as a man being killed by the police”.
Speaking in the Dáil, he told opposition party leaders : “We need to understand the difference between direct provision and a man who was killed by the police by having somebody step on his neck.”
Mr Varadkar was responding to TDs who challenged him to end the controversial direct provision system if his words against racism were to have any real meaning.
Mr Varadkar had criticised, without naming, president Donald Trump for his response to protests across the US following the killing by police of unarmed black man George Floyd in Minnesota.
“We’ve witnessed the absence of moral leadership, or words of understanding, comfort or healing from whence they should have come,” he said, adding that this was “absolutely wrong”.
The Taoiseach also said there was no need to cross the Atlantic to find racism, that it was “pernicious” in Ireland.
He described racism as “a virus transmitted at an early age, perpetuated by prejudice, sustained by systems often unrecognised by those whom it infects, possible to counteract and correct for, but never easy to cure”.
Mr Varadkar said that “we can learn from the mistakes of other countries and make sure we do not follow their path”.
Labour leader Alan Kelly called on the Taoiseach to end the direct provision system of housing for asylum seekers.
Mr Kelly said “that is the real discrimination and racism that is going on in this country” and it has to end,.
The Tipperary TD referred to the direction provision centre in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare and the standards of food, “leaks coming through the roof and the fact that people cannot leave where they are because they have no form of exercise in the area is not humane”.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the “rhetoric in the Irish system decries racism” but at the same time it was maintaining “direct provision and the segregation of our Traveller population”.
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett described direct provision as “racist injustice” and an “ inhumane and degrading system that marks people of colour out as different, other and separate and, consequently, leads to encouraging that poison and racism”.
The Taoiseach said the history of racism in the US was very different from Ireland’s experience of building a multi-racial experience.
Mr Varadkar acknowledged that “direct provision accommodation is substandard and that needs to change. Some of it is of a good standard, such as own door self-catering.
Some of it is of a bad standard and that absolutely needs to change.”
But he said “we need to understand the difference between direct provision and a man who was killed by the police by having somebody step on his neck”.
He said “direct provision is, ultimately, a service offered by the State. It is not compulsory or a form of detention. It involves people being provided with free accommodation, food, heat, lighting, healthcare, education and some spending money.
“It is not the same thing as a man being killed by the police. There is substandard accommodation in some cases and that needs to change.”
