Migration and Citizenship: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-30
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Mattie McGrath (IND), Tipperary South

I welcome the debate. It is great that we can debate this in a reasonable and calm manner. I was in the Chair for a lot of it and I have listened to all of the debate. It is three years ago that we should have had this debate, but we could not raise it here in the House. Any of us who raised serious issues were decried and bemoaned as far right and God knows what else.
I welcome the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, to this job. They have made an effort to deal with elected politicians. What happened under the previous Goverment, Deputy Roderic O'Gorman and his Department, and what happened with the senior officials in justice and integration, was nothing short of scandalous, given the way they treated the people and communities of Tipperary and beyond. What they did in Roscrea, Dundrum and many other places showed the deceit and contempt they had for the ordinary people. The people of Dundrum and Roscrea came out and stood solidly, calmly and honestly. They did not want any far-right people. They hunted bad actors because of their contempt for the communities. The demographic is not supposed to be changed by more than 5%, but it was changed by 200% in Dundrum, with a good community destroyed. They sat at the gates. They were peaceful and good-humoured, and they did it for as long as they could, but no, the Government would not talk to them. Now it has taken the decision to close Dundrum House Hotel. What happened in this situation is that there were greedy actors that had no interest in anyone else, Irish, English or from Timbuktu, but an interest in fat, deep pockets. This allowed people to get rich. Filthy people, I call them, who were exploiting these people coming in, with bad conditions, getting millions in contracts from the State - taxpayers' money - and getting away with it. Now we have created a mess. Thank God, Dundrum is sorted, but many other areas are not.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-30