Online activity by overseas actors during Ireland’s recent fuel protests was a “canary in the coal mine” for the political classes, Minister of State Neale Richmond has said.
The Fine Gael TD, who is a junior Minister at the Department of Foreign Affairs, said the protests grew organically and were motivated by genuine concerns about the cost of living, but were also “used by outside and malevolent actors”.
Pointing to social-media content from British far-right figure Tommy Robinson, one-time Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon and “known American right-wing quasi-conspiracy theorists”, he said there had been “political opportunism” to push a certain agenda.
He said the content spread by online activists was a “fundamental threat to the political centre”.
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The Dublin Rathdown TD said narratives about funding for Ukraine, migration and “the woke agenda” were spread online and linked to the protests.
“We as a political class of all shades and none have to see it as in many ways the canary in the coal mine. We can’t be quiet on this, we have to speak out, we have to make the case for the centre.”
He said that during the fuel protests there was an attempt by “outside actors to come in and piggyback on events that are happening and using it as a platform to drive their narrative”.
Robinson and Bannon “championing an issue and trying to claim it,” he said, “that has to set off alarm bells, not just for the Government, not just for the political establishment, but all parties and all people who are involved in public discourse”.
Richmond was speaking as the Hope and Courage Collective, an NGO, published research which found that the far right does not enjoy broad public support in Ireland but was “shaping the conversation”, with “influence exercised through narrative and political pressure”.
It argued that political discourse was “increasingly influenced by far-right framing”, saying migration was “consistently positioned as a problem to be managed, contained or reduced”.
[ Could Independent Ireland grow on back of fuel price protests?Opens in new window ]
The report was published in the same week in which Tánaiste Simon Harris justified changes to supports for Ukrainian refugees on the grounds that the system was “not fair” and “too expensive”, and Taoiseach Micheál Martin linked homelessness with immigration.
Richmond denied Coalition leaders were leaning on a right-wing framing of immigration, and defended Government policy changes and statements on the topic.
“We do have to be able to present facts ... that shouldn’t be seen as some sort of political agenda,” he said.
There was, he added, a risk of significant disruption from protests during Ireland’s forthcoming presidency of the European Union.
“If we’re going to see protests again during our EU presidency we have to learn how to react to them quicker, clearer and better both in terms of communication and action,” he said.
“One hundred people can cause a lot of disruption in a short space of time. Twenty vehicles can shut down a road or a major artery. So we do have to look to how do we respond to allow free and fair protest absolutely, but to make sure ... [it] doesn’t come to the detriment of society.”
He said other European countries had seen outside influence during moments of social upheaval or elections.
