People seeking to exploit concerns of East Wall locals to ‘target’ vulnerable groups, Coveney says

Protests held after hundreds of asylum seekers were moved into the East Wall area of Dublin are “a worry”, according to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who said creating tension and testing European unity were part of Russia’s thinking in its ongoing war in Ukraine.

Amid a shortage of accommodation due to the arrival of tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees and a surge in international protection applicants, non-residential buildings such as a former ESB block in East Wall have been used to accommodated people coming into the State. Protests have been held in response to the decision, with locals unhappy about a lack of consultation over the move.

Garda sources said a small number of those involved in the protests have been very closely associated with the far right movement, who they believe are seeking to take advantage of the concerns being raised by some East Wall residents and raise wider concerns about immigration.

Mr Coveney told The Irish Times that many of those protesting had genuine concerns that needed to be allayed by the Government providing information. But he suspcted others were taking advantage of the situation.

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“There will always be small numbers of people who want to use these kinds of pressures to create tensions, fears, frustration; to create blame against the Government and to isolate and target vulnerable communities and to blame them,” he said. “I think we have to call that out when it’s happening. But we also have to try and respond to legitimate anxiety and concerns, which are there, and we need to recognise that.”

Need for vigilance

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said on Wednesday that Ireland “must be vigilant” about the abuse of the asylum process after concerns were raised in the Dáil about people arriving from other EU countries with no travel documents.

Independent TD Matt Shanahan said figures he received from the Department of Justice showed 3,705 people arrived at Dublin Airport undocumented in the first nine months of this year.

“And of a total of 5,662 persons presenting who were refused leave, 4,969 persons indicated an intention to claim asylum,” he said, adding that more needed to be done to “shore up our border and immigration policy”.

The Waterford TD said Minister for Justice Helen McEntee had said it was “clear that a significant number” of people in such cases hold status in another member state and “are likely to have travelled here on conventional travel documents”.

In reply, Mr Martin said the State had “disapplied some aspects of the European Convention” linked to asylum “because an abuse was identified and highlighted”. He said “we have to be vigilant” about abuse of the asylum process.

Similar concerns were raised earlier in the Seanad, with Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell saying “this country has open arms for those who seek asylum but those who try to dupe the system should not be facilitated in any way”.

‘Other priorities’

Mr Coveney said that as the war in Ukrainian continues the outpouring of sympathy and understanding for those fleeing that country was perhaps displaced to a degree by “other priorities”.

“Of course this is part of Russia’s calculation; that the longer this war goes on, the more difficult the European Union will find it to accommodate and support Ukraine in terms of cost and in terms of human supports,” he said. “And that’s where we need to be resilient and we need to remind ourselves that this is a war that may go on for some time. And Ireland’s part in the European Union (response) needs to be one that has stamina.”

Ireland, the Minister said, had taken in about 63,000 Ukrainians since Russia invaded in February and a further 10,000 people from other countries had arrived seeking international protect. He believed Irish people had mostly been “remarkably generous” but the Government was “going to have to accommodate people, at short notice at times, and then try to work with local communities to try and put a context on what we are doing”.

‘World has changed’

Mr Coveney, who is also Minister for Defence, was speaking after addressing the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin on Ireland’s term on the UN Security Council.

He told that audience that “the world has changed” and it was against this backdrop that he wanted a change to the so-called “triple lock” mechanism for deploying Irish troops overseas on international peace keeping and peace enforcement missions.

The triple lock mechanism, which has underpinned Ireland’s neutrality for decades, requires the approval of a UN vote, a Government decision and backing through a Dáil resolution for deployments of Irish troops on overseas missions.

He said it was now “very realistic that appropriate interventions we should be part of” would happen in the near future without a security council mandate due to Russia exercising its veto.

This would mean the Kremlin would effectively have the ability to block Irish troops joining those missions, Mr Coveney added, unless the triple lock was changed so that a UN mandate was not always needed before Irish troops were deployed.