THIS is why we need to talk about immigration. The service Gerry Hutch has done the State can be questioned, but thanks to the simplistic, exploitative take on immigration he provided in one of his campaign videos for the Dublin Central by-election, we have a pungent reminder of what fills the vacuum when people are too cowed to debate issues of urgent importance.

Hutch talked about interning immigrants in the Curragh.

He didn’t specify whether just illegal immigrants would be held in this way under his plan, but he did say that people coming ‘from India and that all that type of stuff, genuine people coming in, bring your toolbox’.

His toxic sign-off was that ‘the ones that are Somalians, and them type of people, no way – interned’.

We’ll know in under three weeks how strong the appetite is among voters for this callous suggestion, but only a fool would believe that there isn’t an audience for such a wretched take.

The vagaries of by-elections mean Hutch isn’t expected to go as close to winning a seat as he did in the general election, but by dint of standing and having a platform to spout his poisonous nonsense, he is providing a timely example of the voices that get amplified when difficult conversations are shut down in the mainstream.

And for too long in this country the debate on immigration wasn’t a debate at all. There was a suffocating consensus that was rigorously policed in the media and within politics.

The slightest deviation from it drew cries of ‘racism!’ Daring to question a system shot through with waste and inconsistencies was met with accusations of dog whistles and providing encouragement to the far right.

The charade couldn’t be maintained, and it took the demolition of Sinn Féin at the local elections in 2024 for it to fall apart. Mainstream politicians finally began to listen to the concerns of their constituents who weren’t the foaming bigots of popular caricature. The complete unsustainability of generous supports for Ukrainian refugees fleeing war quickly became apparent.

There were more absurd examples. Asylum seekers camped outside the International Protection Office, and were provided with taxpayer-funded tents and bedding by NGOs.

When Dublin City Council removed the tents, more were promptly provided, before they were destroyed in turn, at a cost of thousands. This is a minuscule amount in the context of the billions spent, but it’s a telling example of how freely public money is wasted, with no apparent accountability.

Little wonder the cosy consensus crumbled.

The yawning gap between public opinion and official ideology is being closed, and not because of a new-found cruelty in the hearts of ministers and officials, but because the alternative is persevering with a costly policy approach that has little public support and which threatens social cohesion. Ireland is no longer going to be a ‘soft touch’ on immigration, a minister told The Irish Mail on Sunday in recent days, with acknowledgement at long last that it is exacerbating the housing emergency.

The ‘soft touch’ language is deliberate, as it was when a Department of Justice source talked of an ‘illegal immigration battle plan’. But the substance behind the sentiment could be transformative. Evidence of a stricter approach came with news of the withdrawal of accommodation supports to Ukrainian refugees, which will see State contracts with hotels brought to a gradual end.

This is after the wind-down of a scheme under which people were paid by the State for providing accommodation to Ukrainians.

A weekend opinion poll showed public support for reducing assistance stood at almost 80%.

Some political opposition remains, in the face of such overwhelming general opinion.

Labour TD Ged Nash insisted the supports were the ‘unique way in which the Irish people and the Irish State have expressed its solidarity and our collective solidarity for the people of Ukraine’, and should be maintained.

Senator Malcolm Noonan of the Greens accused the Government of ‘pandering’ to an ‘anti-immigration narrative’.

‘These are decisions that should only be made following a declaration of peace in Ukraine and some guarantee that families can return home safely if they so wish,’ he remarked.

But there is no prospect of peace in Ukraine, with international attention, especially the crucial and wavering focus of the US, directed towards the slow-building disaster in Iran.

Life remains fraught for many Ukrainians, and some could not countenance returning home yet.

But that bleak reality cannot overwhelm public policy here, however unfeeling that may sound. It’s reasonable for a government to assess its approach to asylum, and towards those looking to immigrate here generally, and to overhaul processes where necessary.

It’s long overdue, and it can be done without nurturing fringe extremist elements.

Jim O’Callaghan’s impact as Minister for Justice has been made by his public interventions, where he defends and explains policies that polling shows are popular with the public.

Clear, consistent communication works.

It addresses concerns, real or imagined, and fills a void that would otherwise be flooded by malignant actors and cynical opportunists, trading in ignorance to advance their own grubby ambitions.

Summer’s here... and so is the scourge of thugs in our parks 

SIGNS of summer have filled our parks and public spaces over the past fortnight as people enjoyed the good weather. But along with the children playing, the buzzing bees and the blooming flowers, the sight of masked bullies on electric bikes and scooters has been a commonplace.

Our local park is regularly menaced by youths, zooming without regard for anyone else and seeming to revel in the fear that they strike in the elderly, in particular.

The news that a garda was deliberately knocked down and hospitalised by a thug in a west Dublin park on Sunday is no surprise. The officer was released after treatment, but only months after the death of Grace Lynch, who was struck by a scrambler bike, the grave warnings that followed have already been forgotten.

Policing the threats posed by these vehicles, and the gougers who use them as weapons of intimidation, appears practically impossible. The case of a garda being charged for a collision that occurred in pursuit of an e-scooter was a dismal complication in an already thankless situation.

The officer struck on Sunday was part of an operation against scramblers and e-vehicles, as well as drug-dealing. The link between these new modes of transport and drugs is well-established, allowing couriers to meet quickly with buyers.

There are no obvious answers to the multi-faceted threats these scooters and bikes pose, but what’s certain is that further disasters await.

This is one example of a new technology making our lives much worse.

The fallout from doing nothing on nuclear energy is already being felt 

ANY chance of some urgency in our nascent discussion on nuclear energy? Taoiseach Micheál Martin said at a summit in Armenia this week that Ireland should ‘examine seriously options like nuclear power’.

This is after one of his party’s backbenchers said he would move legislation to repeal the country’s bizarre ban on even the research of nuclear energy.

Plans by Fianna Fáil’s Deputy James O’Connor would see the unwieldy prohibition overturned. And his Bill is due to be discussed in the Dáil – sometime in the next six months.

By then, we will be in the depths of winter, with Donald Trump’s Iranian disaster potentially still fuelling punitive energy prices.

Even if O’Connor’s Bill was to become law in this country, we are years and years away from harnessing nuclear energy, but energy security should now be a national priority.

Weaning ourselves off unstable fossil fuel supply lines is critical.

That should see an all-of-government determination to fast-track renewable energy projects, but also to facilitate an informed discussion on nuclear energy as soon as possible. Simply letting legislation wend its way slowly through the usual channels in the usual way shouldn’t be acceptable, not when families are stressing about energy bills in May.

Business as usual is not good enough.