Conor Lenihan’s Dail gaffe — he advised Joe Higgins, the Socialist TD, to “stick with the kebabs” when Higgins lectured the house about the privatisation of Aer Lingus — grabbed the headlines last week, but he was not alone in attracting hostile fire from the anti-racism lobby. Michael McDowell, the minister for justice, was also on the rack, though there was no doubt about his intent or his meaning.
Where Lenihan opened his mouth before engaging his brain, McDowell simmered deliberately about the “cock and bull” stories told by some asylum seekers who tried to blag
their way into Ireland. For his honesty, he too was greeted with howls. Heilean Rosenstock-Armie of the Irish Refugee Council accused him of using “inflammatory language” and perpetuating “the stereotype that all asylum seekers are bogus, which is a word we don’t like to use”, while Rosanna Flynn, of Residents Against Racism, thought the minister should be sacked “if that is how he is thinking”.
McDowell’s outburst came under questioning from the justice committee, but it was not a slip of the tongue. He was consciously challenging the simplistic consensus, which dictates that to mention any subject that touches on race is to be stigmatised as a racist. It is a deliberate tactic used by disparate lobby groups who want to ensure that their particular hobbyhorse is not subjected to much scrutiny.
Lenihan, unfortunately, has made it easier for those who want to stymie contentious debating. What he said was unquestionably wrong. His remark — in the context of a rowdy exchange in the Dail — was both stupid and a racial slur.
It was probably sparked by the sheer tedium of having to endure yet another moralising speech from Higgins, a man whose self-importance has swollen to astonishing size since he discovered that Gama, the Turkish construction company, was apparently exploiting and intimidating the Turkish workers who had come to Ireland to work for it.
Higgins on Gama is a worthy lecturer, because he is dealing with what he knows best: evil capitalism picking on helpless workers. Higgins on Aer Lingus, however, is a stretch because the airline is more likely to be a victim of self-interested trade unions than of evil capitalism. And so Lenihan advised him to stick with what he knew, but used the language of a boorish heckler rather than the considered phrases of a minister of state.
He apologised swiftly, much to the annoyance of Emmet Stagg, the Labour party TD, who was determined to match Higgins in the pomposity stakes, and shortly before Joe Duffy’s Liveline on RTE could tell us that kebab is, indeed, a term of abuse in Turkey. (Apparently it signifies a fool, because anyone can eat a kebab.) Was it a resigning matter? Did Lenihan’s outburst reveal an inner racism that he normally keeps at bay? Or was it just a foolish slur, swiftly acknowledged and never to be repeated? If Lenihan’s resignation meant that we had reached a watershed in Irish political life, that from this point political incompetence would result in political redundancy, then it might be possible to summon up the enthusiasm for his dismissal. But we know that this government, and particularly Bertie Ahern, the taoiseach, has no stomach for demanding excellence, or even competence, from cabinet ministers.
Lenihan is, in any case, a soft target for the lynch mob. He can be indiscreet and outspoken and will provide many more opportunities for the mob to call for his head. McDowell is a different animal. No amount of outrage from Ireland’s vociferous lobby groups will force him out of his ministerial seat, though the impact of what he said last week, and more importantly why he said it, was significantly diminished by Lenihan’s intervention.
McDowell’s certainty in his own brilliance inevitably grates on even those who support much of what he tries to do. He can be inflexible and breathtakingly arrogant. There are times when his mind is so closed to rational argument that you wonder whether he flips from brightness to dullness with the flick of some internal switch. He is, too, an odd mix of liberalism and authoritarianism, rejecting state intervention on some levels while seeking outrageous state powers over citizens on another, but he is at his best when he is attacking the dreary and insidious consensus that can paralyse decision-making.
His verbal assault on bogus asylum seekers was a perfect example. McDowell knows that the system is abused, but he does not believe that he should have to pretend that it is not. “There’s a lot of political correctness that goes on here and it is manifestly bogus, far-fetched nonsense and it’s about time we said it,” he told the justice committee last week. For stating a simple truth — that some people arrive in this country and claim asylum on spurious grounds — he is attacked for demonising all asylum seekers. In reality, he is doing the opposite.
By failing to recognise that some asylum seekers are bogus (a word, of course, which the Irish Refugee Council does not like using) the anti-racism lobby plays into the hands of those who would whip up hatred and distrust. Identifying and refusing entry to the chancers is in the best interests of the genuine asylum seekers because they then will not be damaged by association with the small number who do abuse the system.
McDowell, in any case, is trying to improve the asylum and immigration procedures. His consultation paper on changes to Ireland’s immigration and asylum laws is well thought out and his department is succeeding in speeding up the existing processes.
There is plenty of room for improvement — it is nonsensical that it can take 16 months for the spouse of an Irish citizen to be granted residency — but McDowell’s department has started to move in the right direction and is spending a small fortune in taxpayers’ money to get there.
According to the government’s estimates, the total spend across all departments on asylum and immigration services this year will be just short of €400m — a substantial amount of money. Those services have had to respond to a dramatic surge in applications in a very short timescale, and as McDowell pointed out to the committee last week, in just seven years the numbers of staff employed to look after immigration and asylum applications has spiralled from just 30 to almost 700.
In that time, there has been a steady influx of immigrants from outside the European Economic Area, with more than 100,000 arriving legally in the past five years. McDowell recognises that immigration is healthy and essential — last year’s assessment by the Enterprise and Strategy Group said Ireland would need an extra 420,000 workers up to 2010 — and he is developing a strategy that will deal with what the economy needs.
It is ridiculous to call him racist simply because he is prepared to state bluntly that the system is abused, and lobby groups live in a dream world if they believe that ignoring reality is the way to foster confidence in the system.
It is inevitable that the more open we become to immigration, the more that openness will be exploited by a minority of criminals, traffickers and parasites. If the minister for justice is to reassure people that immigration is a good thing, which it is, then he must be able to demonstrate that he has both the will and the systems to weed out those who seek to exploit us. Without that toughness, racism will fester because in the absence of truth, rumour will suffice.
Facts, though, can be uncomfortable. It is much easier to accuse glibly the minister than to engage in a debate with him — a debate that he would relish more than his detractors.
Racism will never be eradicated — there will always be a minority of bigots, matched by those who seek to claim racism in every slight — but it can be contained if we are honest about the problems caused by immigration, and equally honest about the benefits that accrue. Lenihan has set back that debate, but McDowell will continue to press for it. As Abe Lincoln once said, in words that McDowell has quoted before: “Let the people know the facts and the country will be safe.”
