Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar admits immigration is too high and ...

Speaking in Notre Dame University last Friday, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said openly what others- including this platform – have been saying for some time. As reported by the The Observer of Notre Dame, he said :

“The majority of people think that the numbers have been too big in recent years, and they’re right,” he said. “A country of 5 million people seeing its population rise by 2% a year, which is what’s happening at the moment, is too fast.”

Varadkar was speaking at an event organised by the University’s Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies. His theme was the prospects for a united Ireland and it was delivered as part of a discussion at the Hesburgh Center for International Studies.

Leo Varadkar and Professor Colin Barr address students Leo Varadkar and Joe Kennedy III speak at Notre Dame – The Observer (ndsmcobserver.com)

While Varadkar’s acceptance of this fact might be regarded as a breath of fresh air and much needed honesty it cannot be separated from two things. 

First, as a former leading member of the Government that has overseen such dramatic and unprecedented demographic change, he did nothing to question or ameliorate any of this.  

Indeed, he was among those who questioned the veracity of the evidence of what was happening and continued to encourage the trend by implementing policies that are the driving force behind mass immigration. These include the ongoing attempts to open up new and large accommodation centres, mostly in rural or disadvantaged areas. 

The second thing that cannot be ignored is that Fine Gael are now clearly and opportunistically pitching themselves towards the substantial section of the electorate that regards immigration as a pressing issue. 

In an interview with Notre Dame Magazine earlier this week, Varadkar is described as a key player in having the referendums on same sex marriage and abortion carried, and thus helping to “reflect a country becoming more diverse and less aligned with the Catholic Church.”

Well, this is what diversity looks like.  A state in which more than one million and over 20% of the population was born overseas.  A figure on course, according to the Central Statistics Office, to climb to over 40% over the next quarter of a century.  A state in which abortion is one of the factors in a dramatically falling birth rate.  As is the fact that tens of thousands of young Irish born people leave every year.

If Fine Gael are serious about reversing what the former Taoiseach seems to now  to accept is an unhealthy scenario then it needs to do more than throw out pre-campaign soundbites.

It needs to halt the flow of opportunistic immigration and to set about efficiently processing and denying residency to those found not to have a valid case for asylum – something the state has already recognised by adding new countries to the list of those designated as safe.

Varadkar also spent some time in Notre Dame addressing the question of the likelihood of Irish unity.  This earned him the sarcastic but amusing quip from Mary Lou that Leo had discovered his “inner Shinner.”

The fact is that both of their emphasis on a possible border poll is more evidence of what my old friend Anthony McIntyre once likened to “building a tunnel to the moon.”  There is no valid path to unity through the structures of Partition which remain as they have been for over a century since the establishment of the Northern Ireland state.

Varadkar urged more patience than McDonald in pushing the current and allegedly unification friendly British Labour Party Government of Keir Starmer for a “border poll.” However, both are equally overly optimistic or playing politics in this regard.  There is none of the evidence that would persuade a Northern Ireland Secretary that there are grounds – as required under the Good Friday Agreement – for believing that a poll would be in favour of unity.  

Nor is there any evidence from elections since 1998 that there has been any real shift in the proportion of votes for unionist parties as opposed to those favouring unity. The demographics and the “vision” shared for Ireland by all the establishment parties mean that not only is a successful – or indeed even the holding of – border poll unlikely but that Ireland on its current path will have little or any real sovereignty or identity one way or the other.