FG playing race card on migrant issue, says Lenihan

MINISTER OF State for Integration Conor Lenihan has accused Fine Gael of seeking to play the "race card" in Irish politics and said this appeared to be part of a co-ordinated effort on migrant issues by the party.

His remarks followed a query from Fine Gael enterprise and employment spokesman Leo Varadkar last Thursday as to the feasibility of foreign unemployed workers in Ireland being given a lump-sum benefit payment if they agreed to return home.

Mr Varadkar was speaking at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Mr Lenihan said yesterday that what Mr Varadkar had said was "designed to create a climate of resentment against people who have come to Ireland to work".

He described the comments as "a new low in Irish politics and all the more so given that it appears to be a co-ordinated effort on migrant issues by Fine Gael".

He said: "It is of huge concern to me that over the past few months statements have issued from [Fine Gael] D deputies Hayes, Naughten and now Leo Varadkar that are inflammatory and aimed at boosting their own profile at the expense of often vulnerable immigrants".

Cork East Labour TD Seán Sherlock described Mr Varadkar's comments as "nothing short of outrageous".

He said "the kite flown by Deputy Varadkar, who seems to be the new master of key elements of Fine Gael policy, represents an unwelcome lurch towards the far right by his party, and one that will create more problems than it could possibly solve".

Fianna Fáil TD Thomas Byrne described Mr Varadkar's repatriation query as "a cheap publicity stunt that had racist undertones".

Speaking on Newstalk Radio's The Breakfast Show yesterday, he said it was a "proposal quite unsuited to Ireland", which was "hare-brained and which could not apply in Ireland as many of our non-national workers are EU citizens".

On the same programme, Mr Varadkar said the Government was in a position to ask unemployed foreign nationals to leave, albeit on a voluntary basis.

He said the idea was "certainly not a Fine Gael proposal or policy but I think it's worthy of consideration or debate at Dáil committees and that is what Dáil committees are for." He denied having any racist intention. "I think it's a sad day when you can't ask a question about . . . welfare reform without being called a right-wing racist Nazi," he said.