Last Sunday evening, the Independent Dublin city councillor Gavin Pepper, a local politician known for his anti-immigration views, visited Corinthians Boxing Club in Dublin’s north inner city.
There, he spoke to veteran gangland figure Gerry Hutch, a candidate in the Dublin Central byelection.
In their conversation – much of which was subsequently posted on social media – Hutch called for undocumented asylum seekers to be interned, and singled out Somalis, claiming they were “mooching” their way into the country and should be put back on the boats they arrived on.
Hutch’s views were widely condemned by opponents who accused him of racism.
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When The Irish Times spoke with him at a public meeting on Wednesday night, Hutch denied being racist and said: “If I said anything that was racist, I apologise.
“I’m not racist. I have friends – Indians, blacks, whites, all colours. I’m certainly not racist,” said the man who has been described in court as the figurehead of the Hutch crime gang.
He went on to say that the one thing he strongly believes is that those who arrive into Ireland without any documentation should be given short shrift.
So where do these views place Hutch on the political spectrum as he attempts, for the second time, to win a Dáil seat in Dublin Central in the May 22nd byelection triggered by the departure of Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe from Irish politics?
Theresa Reidy, a politics professor at University College Cork, says data from national election studies shows a surprisingly high percentage of Irish voters express some degree of hostility toward “out-groups” such as asylum seekers, immigrants, people of different races and Travellers.
“There is a significant minority of Irish voters who hold quite hostile views toward immigrants, asylum seekers and the Traveller community. So it’s not so much that people don’t hold these views; it’s that they haven’t really been politicised in recent elections,” she says.
“Anywhere between about a quarter and maybe 35 per cent of voters hold quite strong views.”
Since Covid, new parties and individuals have emerged openly expressing anti-immigrant views. Mainstream governing parties have also hardened their stance on immigration. It was most apparent in the volte-face taken by Sinn Féin when it shifted to a policy of a more managed immigration system in the wake of the 2024 local elections.
Research by Rory Costello, a politics lecturer at the University of Limerick, in 2024 found the majority of former Sinn Féin supporters changed their vote away from the party because its then “centrist” approach towards immigration did not tally with their more hardline views.
Reidy points to how Costello’s research showed that a fifth of voters hold views that are not reflected among current elected representatives.
“That creates what you might call an opportunity space,” she says.
The public meeting on Wednesday night was held in the National Handball Centre in Ballybough, a short walk from the inner-city Dublin neighbourhood where Hutch grew up. It was held to discuss the lack of special needs assistants (SNAs) in Dublin Central.
In front of a big media presence, who attended principally because Hutch was there, he told the large audience he would “kick ass” with the relevant Minister to get SNAs, if elected.
Afterwards, he spent some time getting selfies taken with locals and signing autographs.
The 62-year-old father of five, who has for years lived mostly in Lanzarote, is under investigation in Spain where he is suspected of being the leader of an international money laundering group, which he denies.
In Dublin’s north inner city few others command the attention Hutch attracts. A past and current target of the Criminal Assets Bureau, Hutch is a suspect for the two biggest cash robberies in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s, copper-fastening his hardened reputation.
The Irish Times spoke with people who work in the inner city community, though none wished to be named. Each spoke of Hutch’s status in the area and the influence he holds among some cohorts.
Gerry Hutch’s assets: On the trail of a Dublin gang leader turned politician
Most said they did not see him as a right-wing or extremist candidate; one even said the type of comments made by Hutch were regularly said by those frequenting Dublin bars.
Last week, the Hope and Courage Collective, a non-government organisation that monitors far-right extremism and works to counter disinformation in communities, published a report showing a relatively small number of far-right actors were disproportionately influencing public debate through social media, public protests and repeated narratives.
It found their amplification of the “crisis” narrative was making minority views appear more widespread than they were.
Edel McGinley, the group’s executive director, says engagement within affected communities could actually shift the attitude towards inclusion, but warned: “When politicians adopt or echo far-right framing, it doesn’t win support, what it does is risks deepening division and eroding trust [in the community].”
For now, Hutch’s campaign appears largely focused around a nebulous pledge to stand up for his community and as a candidate he has been hard to pin down on many policy issues.
Despite his apology for comments about immigrants, his opponents have said the comments – judged by any yardstick – remain offensive.
Green Party candidate Janet Horner, who was also at the meeting on Wednesday, said his singling out of the Somali community was “prejudiced, harmful and straight out of the Donald Trump playbook”.
Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin of People Before Profit described them as “absolutely racist”, while Ruth O’Dea of the Labour Party said they were “despicable”.
Although Hutch may seek to avoid further comments on immigration in the remaining two weeks of the campaign, his opponents will likely remind voters at every possible opportunity of what he said this past week.
