Hospitality not hostility

Eugene Quinn, National Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Ireland, and Fr Niall Leahy SJ have been speaking publicly about the current immigration crisis in Ireland. Their overall message is that immigrants need to be treated with hospitality not hostility.

Dublin’s Grand Canal became home to an encampment of almost 100 tents pitched over the last week by asylum seekers. They were moved on and by Friday 10 May 2024 some had pitched up in Ringsend but were asked to leave by locals and did so.

Speaking on the Breakfast News programme on Newstalk that morning Eugene Quinn said » the problems for asylum seekers had been exacerbated by the relatively recent government policy of not offering accommodation to new arrivals. He said the tent crisis would continue until this policy was addressed.

He called for a sustained and realistic policy plan that would see the provision of other types of accommodation for migrants such as pre-fabs and cabins on state land. Acknowledging that Irish people had been extraordinarily generous in their welcoming of migrants and asylum seekers he said that there were genuine fears among some people that had to be addressed and that good communication with local communities was imperative.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Niall Leahy SJ, Parish Priest of Gardiner St Church, commented on the kindness and enthusiasm he has seen with migrants in Ireland “One thing I have noticed recently is that we have migrants coming here [to the church] volunteering. It’s one thing I’ve noticed with migrants coming to Ireland, they will come up and say ‘Father, how can I help?’ Niall added they are willing to clean the church or do whatever. he needs them to. “We’ve had migrants here helping, living in temporary accommodation, coming here and singing in our choir, helping in our garden, sweep up the place after a Mass, so there’s been a real generosity there and that is genuine. They bring energy, they bring generosity and a real fervent faith.”

Also speaking to The Irish Catholic Eugene Quinn, says that the tented encampments problem will not go away unless the accommodation issue is addressed comprehensively by government. “We need to find a durable solution, which is not only the right and moral thing to do but actually is the only sound thing you can do to avoid other risks that come up by not responding in that way. The government is struggling, it’s making statements and not following through on the ground on implementation”.

Eugene highlighted the current housing crisis in Ireland and its impact on how some people view migrants in the country. He notes “There are challenges for our own people who are in difficult situations, difficult housing situations, so there needs to be a choreography in responding to those needs. We have record numbers of homeless people in Ireland so there are huge needs on both sides and I suppose the fear is that this becomes a polarising issue.”

Eugene emphasized that the Christian call is clear and that Pope Francis, speaking in the European context, refers to ‘the cry of the migrant’, and is concerned about what he calls the ‘globalisation of indifference’. Eugene noted that the Pope is also very concerned about polarisation “which maybe we’re starting to see in Ireland but has been seen in other countries where migrants have been set up as a scapegoat for all the ills in society and a kind of a lightning rod for other concerns and that has led to a lot of hostility. The Christian response is hospitality rather than hostility,” he concluded.

Read the full article in The Irish Catholic here »