August 22, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Protest demonstration in front of Leinster House, Dublin.
Protest demonstration in front of Leinster House, Dublin.
(Photo: via Dublin Communities Against Racism)
On 3 August 2024, Tricolours and Union flags were held aloft by racists and fascists at Belfast City Hall, united in prejudice, railing against the organization of a ‘Unity over Division’ rally by anti-racist community organisations and trade unions. The far-right in Belfast was joined by agitators from Coolock in Dublin who have violently opposed the siting of an accommodation centre for international protection applicants in their area. The racists were prevented from marching on Belfast Islamic Centre by the police and turned their anger on businesses in South Belfast owned by members of the minority ethnic communities. They then attacked hotels housing asylum-seekers in what must have been a terrifying ordeal for vulnerable children and adults, many of whom had already suffered the trauma of fleeing their countries to seek sanctuary. Several nights of racist violence followed in which businesses, homes and a mosque were targeted. This wave of far-right violence in England, Wales and the north of Ireland followed the stabbing to death of three young girls in Southport on 29 July. Toxic social media posts attributed the killings to a Muslim and migrant despite the 17-year old suspect being born in Cardiff.
In the south of Ireland, there has been increasing levels of violence directed at international protection applicants forced to sleep in tents because of a lack of state-provided accommodation. There have also been at least 31 arson attacks on ‘properties or locations linked, or rumoured to be linked, to the housing of people seeking asylum or international protection’.
Housing crisis
So, what is driving this escalation in racist intimidation and violence? A common denominator in the north and south of Ireland is a housing crisis, particularly the lack of affordable social housing to buy and accommodation to rent. In the north, only 400 new social housing units are to be built in 2024-25 from a target of 2,000, with the lack of housing feeding the false narrative that the available stock is reserved for migrants. According to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), net migration increased by 2,300 people or just 0.1 per cent of the total population in 2022 which means that only 2.5 percent of asylum-seekers in the UK live in the north. The displacement rhetoric whipped up by the far-right on the basis that migrants are lengthening waiting lists for social housing and absorbing available supply is a fallacy as asylum applicants are not on social housing waiting lists. The housing crisis is caused by a supply issue and flawed government policies, not inward migration.
In the south of Ireland, the homeless total has surpassed 14,000, 4000 of whom are children. A chronic lack of social housing combined with unaffordable rental charges and rising numbers of tenant evictions has created a gridlocked housing sector. The 2022 Irish census revealed that 41 per cent of young people, aged between 18 and 34, are living with their parents because they are unable to afford a mortgage or secure a tenancy in the rental sector. The housing crisis is compounded by investor funds from the private sector buying up properties to rent out and create ‘a permanent income stream for their shareholders and wealthy investors’. The Department of Finance revealed that a total of 623 homes were bought by 16 investors in 2023, compared to 395 in 2022 and 187 in 2021. This is the reckless outcome of neoliberal policies that enlarge the role of the private sector and landlords whose only imperative is to turn a healthy profit.
Inner city neglect
But the lack of affordable social housing is not the only driver of poverty and racism in Ireland. Pobal, a government agency designed to support social inclusion and community development, found in 2023 an increase in the gap between Ireland’s most disadvantaged areas and the national average. The Pobal Deprivation Index uses a composite of ten indicators to measure an area’s level of disadvantage including educational attainment, unemployment, access to services and the number of persons per room. It found that 195,992 people ‘now live in areas classed as very or extremely disadvantaged’ including Coolock in Dublin’s northside, where arsonists targeted a site designated for housing units for Ukrainian refugees. With Ireland riding a corporate tax windfall which resulted in an €8.6 billion surplus this year, there is an obvious case to be made for increased investment in services that address the fault-lines in Irish society that have manifested themselves in racially-motivated violence stirred by inflammatory and, in some cases, ‘false and racially-motivated, toxic speech’. While there is no tax boon to be had in the north of Ireland, the newly elected Labour government needs to shed itself of the ‘non-negotiable’ fiscal rules that are constraining much needed expenditure on failing services, particularly on the National Health Service. The north of Ireland has the ‘highest per capita waiting list in the UK’ for health appointments, including patients who have waited more than a year for an appointment. Nearly one-in-five people in the north live in poverty, including over 100,000 children, with one in fourteen households food insecure.
Wealth redistribution
Governments in Dublin and London need to use taxation to redistribute wealth given the polarising effects of neoliberalism in accelerating inequality in Britain and Ireland. Oxfam has reported that the richest one per cent of Britons hold more wealth than 70 per cent of the population combined. The same report found that 95 food and energy corporations more than doubled their profits in 2022 and paid out $257 billion (£211 billion) in dividends to shareholders. The timing of this windfall for the super-rich coincided with millions of families struggling to manage food and energy bills, and unprecedented numbers making recourse to foodbanks to survive. It’s a similarly unequal and depressing situation in Ireland, with the richest one per cent controlling 35.4 per cent of Irish financial wealth. Ireland’s two billionaires have more wealth – €15 billion – than fifty per cent of the Irish population combined, who own €10.3 billion. A progressive wealth tax on Irish millionaires and billionaires could generate up to €8.2 billion a year, argues Oxfam, a war chest that could help address the persistent social and economic problems that are creating so much disadvantage, anger and alienation from mainstream politics.
Since the 1970s, neoliberalism has created the ideal conditions that allow the far-right to prosper. It privatises public services, suppresses wages, erodes the welfare state and undermines the social contract. The atomisation of society under neoliberalism collapses the political into the personal and denies the capacity for systemic thinking. So, in addition to addressing the material causes of poverty through a more equitable redistribution of wealth, is the need for education and critical thinking that demystifies and challenges the fallacies that are driving racism and fascism. As Henry Giroux argues: ‘Education both in its symbolic and institutional forms has a vital role to play in fighting the resurgence of false renderings of history, white supremacy, religious fundamentalism, an accelerating militarism, and ultra-nationalism’. Transformative education is needed to challenge the epistemic injustice that blinds communities on the frontlines of poverty in Ireland from the systemic failures that underpin inequality. The alternative is to allow the far-right to prey upon the effects of neoliberalism to foster prejudice and hate.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers. Donate
Stephen McCloskey
Stephen McCloskey works in the global education sector in Ireland. He is the author of Global Learning and International Development in the Age of Neoliberalism (Routledge, 2022). He is writing in a personal capacity.
On 3 August 2024, Tricolours and Union flags were held aloft by racists and fascists at Belfast City Hall, united in prejudice, railing against the organization of a ‘Unity over Division’ rally by anti-racist community organisations and trade unions. The far-right in Belfast was joined by agitators from Coolock in Dublin who have violently opposed the siting of an accommodation centre for international protection applicants in their area. The racists were prevented from marching on Belfast Islamic Centre by the police and turned their anger on businesses in South Belfast owned by members of the minority ethnic communities. They then attacked hotels housing asylum-seekers in what must have been a terrifying ordeal for vulnerable children and adults, many of whom had already suffered the trauma of fleeing their countries to seek sanctuary. Several nights of racist violence followed in which businesses, homes and a mosque were targeted. This wave of far-right violence in England, Wales and the north of Ireland followed the stabbing to death of three young girls in Southport on 29 July. Toxic social media posts attributed the killings to a Muslim and migrant despite the 17-year old suspect being born in Cardiff.
In the south of Ireland, there has been increasing levels of violence directed at international protection applicants forced to sleep in tents because of a lack of state-provided accommodation. There have also been at least 31 arson attacks on ‘properties or locations linked, or rumoured to be linked, to the housing of people seeking asylum or international protection’.
Housing crisis
So, what is driving this escalation in racist intimidation and violence? A common denominator in the north and south of Ireland is a housing crisis, particularly the lack of affordable social housing to buy and accommodation to rent. In the north, only 400 new social housing units are to be built in 2024-25 from a target of 2,000, with the lack of housing feeding the false narrative that the available stock is reserved for migrants. According to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), net migration increased by 2,300 people or just 0.1 per cent of the total population in 2022 which means that only 2.5 percent of asylum-seekers in the UK live in the north. The displacement rhetoric whipped up by the far-right on the basis that migrants are lengthening waiting lists for social housing and absorbing available supply is a fallacy as asylum applicants are not on social housing waiting lists. The housing crisis is caused by a supply issue and flawed government policies, not inward migration.
In the south of Ireland, the homeless total has surpassed 14,000, 4000 of whom are children. A chronic lack of social housing combined with unaffordable rental charges and rising numbers of tenant evictions has created a gridlocked housing sector. The 2022 Irish census revealed that 41 per cent of young people, aged between 18 and 34, are living with their parents because they are unable to afford a mortgage or secure a tenancy in the rental sector. The housing crisis is compounded by investor funds from the private sector buying up properties to rent out and create ‘a permanent income stream for their shareholders and wealthy investors’. The Department of Finance revealed that a total of 623 homes were bought by 16 investors in 2023, compared to 395 in 2022 and 187 in 2021. This is the reckless outcome of neoliberal policies that enlarge the role of the private sector and landlords whose only imperative is to turn a healthy profit.
Inner city neglect
But the lack of affordable social housing is not the only driver of poverty and racism in Ireland. Pobal, a government agency designed to support social inclusion and community development, found in 2023 an increase in the gap between Ireland’s most disadvantaged areas and the national average. The Pobal Deprivation Index uses a composite of ten indicators to measure an area’s level of disadvantage including educational attainment, unemployment, access to services and the number of persons per room. It found that 195,992 people ‘now live in areas classed as very or extremely disadvantaged’ including Coolock in Dublin’s northside, where arsonists targeted a site designated for housing units for Ukrainian refugees. With Ireland riding a corporate tax windfall which resulted in an €8.6 billion surplus this year, there is an obvious case to be made for increased investment in services that address the fault-lines in Irish society that have manifested themselves in racially-motivated violence stirred by inflammatory and, in some cases, ‘false and racially-motivated, toxic speech’. While there is no tax boon to be had in the north of Ireland, the newly elected Labour government needs to shed itself of the ‘non-negotiable’ fiscal rules that are constraining much needed expenditure on failing services, particularly on the National Health Service. The north of Ireland has the ‘highest per capita waiting list in the UK’ for health appointments, including patients who have waited more than a year for an appointment. Nearly one-in-five people in the north live in poverty, including over 100,000 children, with one in fourteen households food insecure.
Wealth redistribution
Governments in Dublin and London need to use taxation to redistribute wealth given the polarising effects of neoliberalism in accelerating inequality in Britain and Ireland. Oxfam has reported that the richest one per cent of Britons hold more wealth than 70 per cent of the population combined. The same report found that 95 food and energy corporations more than doubled their profits in 2022 and paid out $257 billion (£211 billion) in dividends to shareholders. The timing of this windfall for the super-rich coincided with millions of families struggling to manage food and energy bills, and unprecedented numbers making recourse to foodbanks to survive. It’s a similarly unequal and depressing situation in Ireland, with the richest one per cent controlling 35.4 per cent of Irish financial wealth. Ireland’s two billionaires have more wealth – €15 billion – than fifty per cent of the Irish population combined, who own €10.3 billion. A progressive wealth tax on Irish millionaires and billionaires could generate up to €8.2 billion a year, argues Oxfam, a war chest that could help address the persistent social and economic problems that are creating so much disadvantage, anger and alienation from mainstream politics.
Since the 1970s, neoliberalism has created the ideal conditions that allow the far-right to prosper. It privatises public services, suppresses wages, erodes the welfare state and undermines the social contract. The atomisation of society under neoliberalism collapses the political into the personal and denies the capacity for systemic thinking. So, in addition to addressing the material causes of poverty through a more equitable redistribution of wealth, is the need for education and critical thinking that demystifies and challenges the fallacies that are driving racism and fascism. As Henry Giroux argues: ‘Education both in its symbolic and institutional forms has a vital role to play in fighting the resurgence of false renderings of history, white supremacy, religious fundamentalism, an accelerating militarism, and ultra-nationalism’. Transformative education is needed to challenge the epistemic injustice that blinds communities on the frontlines of poverty in Ireland from the systemic failures that underpin inequality. The alternative is to allow the far-right to prey upon the effects of neoliberalism to foster prejudice and hate.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers. Donate
Stephen McCloskey
Stephen McCloskey works in the global education sector in Ireland. He is the author of Global Learning and International Development in the Age of Neoliberalism (Routledge, 2022). He is writing in a personal capacity.
