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PB February/March 2024 February/March 2024 39
Gript is particularly focused on immigration
and climate and, though unfashionably
friendly to religion and hostile to NGOs, it is
not nationalistic
So let’s take a look at Gript
Mission
Right-wing politics website Gript was set up in
2018 to “facilitate debate and challenge the
consensus” in journalism, particularly the
progressive consensus in reporting (not just in
opinion pieces), and especially the selection of
what stories to cover.
Gript is particularly focused on immigration
and climate. Its website claims to be “News,
Opinion, and Analysis – Without the Liberal
Filter” and says that “what we try to be here is
open, honest and brave”. Though unfashionably
friendly to religion and hostile to NGOs, especially
of course ones that do not mirror its views or
platform its own NGO directors, it is not
nationalistic. Editor John McGuirk says it is centre-
right, but that is not its stance in the culture wars
where it is profligately immoderate.
Modus Operandi
Gript has a number of characteristic approaches.
• It is impressively sceptical, though in the case
of liberals, climate scientists and NGOs
(though not the NGOs that underpin it) that can
look more like cynical.
•
Gript’s Senior Political Correspondent, Ben
Scallan, gives politicians grief on video over
their soft leftinesses.
•
It focuses on a number of right-wing politicians,
whom it generously platforms, and
scrupulously publishes their intolerant views
without comment.
•
As to liberals and lefties, it often attacks the
messenger particularly on grounds of
hypocrisy.
• Gript is hostile to Greens, doesn’t understand
the scientific method and therefore ignores
some of the biggest existential issues of our
time including the climate and biodiversity
crises and never analyses the Greens’ real
strategic failures.
• Its commentators often take the disingenuous
stance that, while they themselves may not
Gript by lies,
stirring hatred,
and sometimes
racist
By Michael Smith
take an intolerant view, the government’s
failure to deal with the strength of the view
among the public is exacerbating the
intolerance. It likes triumphantly to cite the
statistic from a Red C Poll that 75% of people
thing we have accepted too many refugees.
•
Above all, it publishes hundreds of negative
pieces about the vulnerable, typically brave,
minorities it dislikes, without ever really
covering them in a favourable way.
If you all think that is an attractive cocktail
you will like and follow Gript.
As to whether it deserves the grudging respect
of more liberal and leftist commentators for at
least being, as it flatters itself, “open, honest and
brave”, while it is brave to be anti-consensus and
to defend unfashionable causes like (in Ireland)
religion, conservatism and Israel, there is little
evidence of real openness or honesty, and
bravery in publishing negative and partial views
and opinions on vulnerable minorities like Trans
people, Muslims and asylum-seekers is cheap
and populist, not brave.
It is not even open enough to address
squarely issues like climate change, the
generation of refugees by wars and
persecution, whether Ireland has any problems
at all with hate or even if Palestinians are being
Polo-necked John McGuirk, who fronts illiberal
website Gript, is a serial liar and promoter of
hatred, and an occasional racist
POLITICS
See decision of Press Council on this article:
40 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 41
subjected to war crimes by Israel.
Though impolite to say it, it is also the case that
Gript and its editor characteristically make lots of
mistakes.
Editor
Monaghan-born, Tipperary-dwelling, McGuirk
initiated his desultory career in politics with
abortive outings for first Fianna Fáil (2001) and
then, extraordinarily soon afterwards, Fine Gael
(2003), via apologies delivered to Trinity’s Hist
society for sending anonymous emails, and
failing to get elected as President of the Union of
Students in Ireland. He then launched himself at
the Freedom Institute, a PD oshoot. Then he did
a stint with the Green Party’s Mark Dearey.
Typical of his youthful embarrassments are his
unfortunate fallings out with both of Ireland’s
great civil war parties. He resigned from a junior
position in Ógra Fianna Fáil after turmoil about
first whether one particular email was a forgery
and then over who had leaked quite dierent
emails. And that he lied to Young Fine Gael (YFG)
that Phoenix magazine wanted to publish a piece
about a salacious juxtaposition of YFG material
with material of a sexual nature by the group’s
equality ocer, ensuring the unfortunate young
ocer’s resignation.
Phoenix highlighted McGuirk’s repeated early
lying in a 2007 profile. It said the 23-year-old
McGuirk had “made a career of flip-flopping,
changing course and causing havoc wherever he
goes”. Even by then his adventures and mistakes
were exhausting.
He worked for Declan Ganley in his Rivada
Company and then in the weirdly right-wing anti-
Communautaire Libertas during the Lisbon
campaigns of 2008 and 2009.
Libertas fought the 2009 European elections
with three candidates. McGuirk issued a press
release attacking the Simon Wiesenthal Centre
on behalf of one of them, Caroline Simons,
without any knowledge whatsoever on her part,
and later attacked her as a “psychotic bitch” and
the “worst candidate ever” – before apologising.
At the 2011 General Election he stood for
something called New Era, losing his deposit in
Cavan-Monaghan.
McGuirk was the spokesperson for the Life
Institute’s anti-abortion ‘Save The 8th’ campaign
during Ireland’s 2018 abortion referendum and
was often platformed by Vincent Browne’s
Tonight Show where he was an engaging and
articulate performer. In the campaign McGuirk
tweeted a photo of pro-choice campaigners
carrying posters featuring the 1930s logo of the
British Union of Fascists. The posters had been
handed out to unwitting marchers by
anti-abortion.
He writes for the Irish Catholic and has been
editor of Gript since 2019 bringing to 11 the public
entities that have carried his politics which are
best described as gymnastic. And he’s not yet 40.
McGuirk is smooth, dapper (especially recently
Ozempic-fuelled), aable, articulate and clever
— an ordinary lad out of Trinity, with a goatee, and
a polo neck in the wardrobe.
He loves his dog, supports Man U, loves the
county cricket and plays video games. He’s
admirably unflappable; and needs to be.
Dicing with racism
However McGuirk has always nurtured his
intolerant side and there is no better man for
innocently getting into a politically incorrect
scrap: when Barack Obama beat war-wounded
John McCain for the US Presidency in 2008,
McGuirk tweeted: “We were that close to having
the world run by a vegetable we got lucky and had
it run by a monkey instead”. That year he also
described pro-choice TD Kate O’Connell as a
“catty, spiteful, loathsome, twit”.
Another unpleasant and ostensibly somewhat
racist outing for McGuirk, though he makes out
he was merely illustrating the hypocrisy of former
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, was a Tweet about
a movie: “Before Django gets notions, remember
that Nelson Mandela, who he never stops
comparing himself to, is clearly Gerry Adam’s
favourite n*****”. Parking Adams’ [sic] role in the
aair, McGuirk is clearly someone comfortable
playing games with the word n*****, in relation
to one of the world’s greatest men, Mandela.
He once tweeted: “Charlie Bird is really
annoying me with his “OMG these blacks are so
poor” schtick”. And he is currently unenergetically
pursuing Web Summit’s Paddy Cosgrave for
defamation, after Cosgrave rehashed a dozen old
tweets in which McGuirk salaciously ventilated
about drooling over young girls like a “paedo”
and, McGuirk alleges, implied the Gript editor
was a racist. He is also pursuing Irish Central and
a number of other alleged defamers.
But, mainly what is nasty here is that McGuirk
edits an organ that obsesses over, but only very
rarely portrays positively, black and brown
people.
Ownership
McGuirk does not have a stake in Gript which is
owned by Evelyn Porter and Niamh Uí Bhriain and
employs ten. Its regular writers include Ben
Scallan, former activist with the right-wing Irish
Freedom Party.
Both Gript directors have connections with the
pro-life movement in Ireland, including the Life
Institute and Youth Defence.
A phone number used by one of them in Gript’s
2019 annual return is the same number used by
Youth Defence across its social media though
McGuirk says the connection is no more than that
between the Labour Party, which includes some
former Workers Party members, and the old IRA.
Gript’s Senior Political Correspondent, Ben
Scallan, stood for the nutty and far-right Irish
Freedom Party (President: Farage’s Hermann
Kelly) in the 2020 General Election.
Finances
Financial statements for the company show Gript
has never made a profit. The latest accounts show
the company lost €3,000 in 2022, but the idea is
to get a grip in the market and eventually get
more advertising. The model is similar to that of
thejournal.ie, and Gript’s momentum and impact
are strong.
Parnell Square stabbing débacle
Tweet identifies alleged stabber as
Algerian
Gript found itself at the centre of a media storm
on 23 November when, citing ocal sources, it
tweeted that the “person of interest” to gardaí in
relation to a horrific knife attack in Dublin was an
Algerian national. It ran a story to that eect a
short time later on its website.
Its Tweet (above) came just hours after the
incident, when information was scarce and many
Its commentators often take the
disingenuous stance that, while they
themselves may not take an intolerant view,
the government’s failure to deal with the
strength of the view among the public is
exacerbating the intolerance
Attitudinl journlism
40 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 41
were seeking context to the tragic events that had
occurred. A follow-up Tweet undermined its own
information, saying that the investigation was at
“a very early stage” and providing cover, should
their information prove to be incorrect.
However, this second Tweet was only seen by
a sixth of those who saw the first Tweet.
The reference to Algerian nationality, at a time
when the country was coming to terms with the
horror that was unfolding, was intended to, and
duly did, go viral, especially among a cohort
Ireland’s well-known racists who it is impossible
to deny look to Gript for information on occasions
like this. These people are in the business of
being stirred-up and hatred is their currency.
The man was, in fact, a naturalised Irish citizen
who came to Ireland from Algeria about 20 years
ago. His country of origin was irrelevant to his
actions which appear to have been rooted in
severe mental health problems.
The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act
1989 states that it is an oence to communicate
threatening, abusive or insulting material that is
intended, or likely to, “stir up” hatred against a
group of people because of their race, colour,
nationality, religion, ethnic or national origins. It
seems probable the Tweet stirred up racial hatred
on the basis of national origin — to imply the man
may have carried out his crime because of
Islamism, that it was a terrorist act. Or perhaps
that this Algerian, like so many of the immigrants
of colour who Gript covers, was more inclined to
commit crime than Irish people are.His approach
was also racist. The Irish Network against Racism
defines racism as “any action…which has the
eect (whether intentional or not) of undermining
anyone’s enjoyment of their human rights, based
on their actual or perceived ethnic or national
origin or background, where that background is
that of a marginalised or historically subordinated
group”.
Yet McGuirk in subsequent posts revelled in it
as an act of press freedom, a public service. It
reprehensibly compounds the racism. It
performed no public service. It served to incite
riots.
Gript cocks up on identity of the stabber
A few days later, Gript proudly teased another
McGuirk story ahead of publication.
A now deleted Tweet from McGuirk, described
the story which it ran under his byline and which
featured details of an Algerian’s immigration
history, as “quite a tale”, while reporter Fatima
Gunning suggested that it would “rock A LOT of
boats”. In fact it mainly sank them.
After confirming receipt of confirmation from
the Garda that this new info was in fact about a
dierent Algerian. Gript reversed fast but issued
a statement (above left) threatening to reveal its
Garda sources, suggesting that it may have been
deliberately duped into publishing erroneous
information.
There was no apology issued to the person
wrongly described in the article though he spent
time under Garda protection for his own safety
and was catastrophically defamed by being
imputed a child stabber. Unsurprisingly he is now
suing Gript for defamation, It is an unpleasant
shadow for tne small but growing operation.
McGuirk stated on Twitter (now of course
known as X): “If, as the Garda say, that person
has no case to answer then that’s obviously awful
for them as well”. But it wasn’t an “if” and saying
so aggravated the defamation. Also: “as well” is
a strange take on the débacle presumably
implying that Gript thought its own recklessness
deserved sympathy.
It’s all lacking in openness, bravery and
honesty.
The story had been live for over seventeen
hours before it was taken down and replaced with
Phoenix highlighted McGuirk’s repeated
early lying in a 2007 profile. It said the
23-year-old McGuirk had “made a career of
flip-flopping, changing course and causing
havoc wherever he goes”. Even by then his
adventures and mistakes were exhausting
Typical of McGuirk’s youthful
embarrassments are his
unfortunate fallings out with
both of Ireland’s great civil
war parties
Stirring-up of htred: Tweet specifying
lleged stbber’s ntionlity certinly didn’t
dvnce the public interest
spred like wild fire
42 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 43
a statement from Gript: ‘We were provided
information in good faith by two usually reliable
sources, who we trust”. But that can’t be true —
it wasn’t that sort of lie. Being Ireland, everyone
was too distracted to nail what a corruption of
proper journalism and what an indictment of
journalistic ethics the mistake and its mishandling
represented.
Inevitably, while Gript did not explicitly name
the individual, it didn’t take long for far-right
factions online to fill in the blanks. Teeing up
others to identify someone is a recognised head
of defamation.
Known far-right agitator Michael O’Keee,
described in the Dáil as a white supremacist,
tweeted the name and picture of the Algerian
recognisable from Gript’s piece, before later
deleting it.
O’Keeffe has previously claimed to have
supplied stories to Gript and appeared to take
some credit for Gript’s original story, tweeting:
“Gript confirming my post from a few days ago”,
though there is no evidence O’Keee had any
involvement in Gript’s sourcing of its incorrect
story.
Typical Gript articles which,
taken as a whole, amount to
racism
Delving into Gript’s archive shows it is no stranger
to incendiary headlines and articles that
demonise migrants and asylum seekers.
It exploits the fact some asylum seekers are
“fake” and arriving from “safe” countries t to
whip up its followers and create an ‘us against
them’ narrative.
Suggestions that the arrival of people on our
shores will lead to lower wages are also repeated
regularly, while there is thinly-veiled racism in its
depiction of the emigration of Irish people as
entirely dierent because they travelled to
predominantly white, English-speaking
countries.
The images that come up when you Google
“Gript Migrant” and the associated content
betray a strategy by Gript to question the
legitimacy of asylum seekers, without drawing
attention to the life-threatening difficulties
experienced by asylum-seekers, stoking division
among people represented by the awful scenes
in Dublin in November.
Shortly after the riots, Gript repeated
incendiary claims made by independent Senator
Sharon Keogan that a Bangladeshi family seeking
asylum had received a three-bedroom apartment
from the State immediately after arriving in in
County Westmeath — better treatment than
locals get, when in fact the apartment was in a
“temporary accommodation centre” and the
family could be moved at any moment.
Mistakes and lies galore
But the horrible Parnell St implosion is part of a
pattern of heedlessness to the facts on the part
of Gript Media. McGuirk regularly asserts that
Gript rarely makes mistakes. That betras its own
tragedy of self-awareness. McGuirk makes a
point of Gript’s membership of the Press Council
and the fact it has no negative decisions from that
body or the Broadcasting Authority. It doesn’t
matter. There are factual failures — and lies —
galore. I could go through any page of its website
and find multiple inaccuracies. It is not quite the
same with RTÉ, the Irish Times and Irish
Independent etc, as he wishfully claims.
So let’s look at a few of McGuirk’s mistakes and
dishonesties.
• His USI campaign featured lies that he was on
the boards of the Monaghan Youth Federation
and the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group.
• His asylum application, as well as getting the
wrong Algerian, included false assertions that
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had intervened to help
the man with his asylum application.
•
In March 2021, RTÉ had to pay €20,000 to
charity after, in an understandably rare
appearance on the station, McGuirk claimed
Éirígí was responsible for the murder of
journalist Lyra McKee. On returning home after
the programme he tweeted: “On TV earlier I got
my Republican groups mixed up badly, in a slip
of the tongue - it was of course Saoradh, not
Eirigí [sic], who were connected to the murder
of Lyra McKee. I want to apologise publicly to
Eirigí for the error, and thank RTE for correcting
it”.
•
For years McGuirk viciously and variously
derided the anti climate change agenda
though to be fair he was insidiously clever
enough never to deny there was a problem. In
2010 he wrote “the media have been happy to
swallow whole the claims made by what is a
remarkably small band of scientists, backed up
by a larger band of cultist devotees”. By 2022,
having ventilated not one word of succour to
those campaigning to reduce emissions, and
having put himself the wrong side of science
and history, his stand had evolved to: “It seems
to me that there comes a point when you have
to stop talking about preventing the climate
from changing, and start talking about
adapting to life - for human and animal alike -
in a changed climate”.
• Typical of Gript’s editorial failure on climate is
a 2019 piece by Bruno Pontes, tellingly titled
‘Why did these scientists manipulate data if
the case for global warming is airtight?, which
describes the 2009 ‘Climategate’ aair when
scientists at the University of East Anglia,
according to PA, “stonewalled sceptics and
discussed hiding data” on climate change as
a fraudulent manipulation when eight dierent
reports, including reviews by the US EPA and
the US Department of Commerce expressly
denied there had been manipulation and all
denied there had been scientific misconduct or
that any errors were deliberate i.e. fraud.
•
In May 2021 Gript tweeted “There has been
significant outrage in the Midlands after a
company run by Eamon Ryan’s nephew won a
contract to run a bike hire service in Oaly,
winning out over a local who had already been
doing the job for 11 years”. An incendiary
campaign lasted a few hours on Twitter. Village
noted that an apology was owed to Ryan since
the story was another lie and was eventually
taken down. Ryan and Keaney are not related.
It was duly provided but is no longer visible to
the public as it is behind paywall.
•
In 2013, McGuirk tweeted that following a
profile of him in Phoenix magazine “they [The
Phoenix] paid for a nice holiday for me, from the
lawsuit”. The Phoenix rebutted this: “There was
no lawsuit; The Phoenix has never been sued
by McGuirk, never mind lost a case against
him; nor has the publication ever settled a
claim out of court with McGuirk”.
In April 2023, the Press Ombudsman upheld
a complaint about the truth and accuracy of a
Gript article based on a senator’s response to
a “revelation” made in The Irish Times saying
it: “falsely claims that what has been revealed
is an increase in abortions for Down Syndrome
carried out in Ireland, when The Irish Times
article makes it clear that the abortions referred
to have been carried out elsewhere, given that
abortion on the grounds of a Down Syndrome
diagnosis is not legally provided for in this
countr y”.
• Typical of Gript is the following extract from a
piece from McGuirk on the bombing of the car
park of Al Aqsa Hospital in Gaza. He asserts the
explosion derived from a misfired Palestinian
Google “Gript migrnt” for negtive perspective
42 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 43
media organisations dominated the list, taking
eight of the top ten slots, they only made up 53%
of the total combined shares. 30% of media
shares, of any kind, within what the ISD referred
to as “the mis and disinformation ecosystem”
comes from Gript
According to the report by ISD which is
funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian
Foundation, “Gript has emerged as a prominent
entity within the Irish mis- and disinformation
ecosystem, with its posts consistently gaining
some of the highest interactions within the
topics analysed. The site was also the most
shared media platform for seven out of the nine
topics analysed”.
For good or bad, Gript is becoming the player
it wants to be.
Village contacted Gript for comment, primarily
about the November riots, but nothing emerged.
In light of comments received from Gript after
publication, we changed a number of minor
inaccuracies; corrected an inaccurate reference to
Gript failing to apologise to Eamon Ryan over the
awarding of a bicycle-hire contract, that Gript had
wrongly said was nepotistic; and deleted an
inaccurate statement that John McGuirk had either
mistakenly or dishonestly claimed that Leo
Varadkar had intervened in the asylum application
of the Algerian to whom Gript wrongly attributed
the Parnell Square stabbing.
We have corrected the statement: ‘47% of
misinformation and disinformation across a
range of hotbutton issues came from just two
alternative media outlets, Gript and TheLiberal.
ie, with Gript receiving 30% of all social-media
shares’ which was based on a misreading of the
ISD report ‘Uisce Faoi Thalamh An Investigation
Into the Online Mis- and Disinformation
Ecosystem in Ireland’ which actually states that
30% of media shares, of any kind, within what
the ISD referred to as “the mis and disinformation
ecosystem” comes from Gript.
rocket not an Israeli missile. In fact this is
probably, but may not be, the case. Journalists
were entitled prima facie to assume damage in
Gaza was caused by the Israelis as the Israelis
have dedicated themselves to that end. The
correct thing was to correct the assertion if it
was provably untrue and to report the plausible
Israeli denials if, as was in fact the case, it
could not be proved one way or the other.
Instead this is what a righteous McGuirk
published, under the heading ‘A Black Day for
Media Misinformation’: “Even if one is inclined,
against the evidence, to believe that this was
still some act of madness by the Israelis, the
press had no reason at all to be so inclined.
They are supposed to be objective, after all”.
McGuirk said Irish readers should recognise
this behaviour. It was the same media conduct
that gave us the ludicrous story about an
“attack” on a migrant camp in Ashtown and the
calumnies against teachers in a Carlow School.
The media, McGuirk claimed (though not
Gript which is actually set up to counter this
sort of thing), “have a very clear take on who
the goodies and the baddies are. And when the
baddies are claimed to have done something
bad, well? Who needs evidence”. His point
about tribal journalism is well made, though
lacking in self-awareness, but the cases seem
uncompellingly random and his argument
about Israel was tendentious, and just a bit
hysterical.
•
Gript lies repeatedly about the draft hate
legislation whose construction deserves more
legal awareness than Gript can provide.
Gript raves about the failure to define hatred.
This is certainly not a wild criticism but in
reality the law often allows the definition of key
concepts to evolve with society and therefore
to be interpreted by the courts. The legislation
is circumscribed by the fact that it only applies
to those at risk of stoking hatred against
named vulnerable minorities: something
mature interlocuters avoid. Gript’s Ben Scallan
recently impressively managed to net an
interview with X’s Elon Musk and the two
conversed for an hour without ever addressing
this central circumscription of the risk to free
speech. Musk even volunteered to pay for a
challenge to the legislation.
Gript untruthfully claims the legislation
would make it “a crime to merely possess
alleged “hate” materials on one’s person or in
one’s home” when in fact the legislation would
only apply if the materials could be proved
(which would be dicult) to be destined to be
used to promote hatred. And it claims that
there “doesn’t appear to be any security or
verification system in place which would catch
false reports or stop a single bad actor from
submitting multiple spurious reports”. This
last claim just shows ignorance of the criminal
law. Wasting Garda time or malicious
prosecutions are always criminally actionable.
But much more importantly — and subversive
of every single one of Gript’s criticisms — is that
if any of the legislation was imposed arbitrarily
it is likely it would generate a massive political
backlash, led by the likes of Gript (and Village)
and successful litigation that would fast
discredit or overturn the legislation, something
the conspiracy-mongers in Gript would
concede the busybody legislators would not
like or intend.
Gript’s effectiveness in
spreading misinformation and
disinformation
The table below shows the media outlets most
often shared by accounts that have shared
misinformation or disinformation. While legacy
44 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 45
Dublin Convention
and Regulation III, on
asylum-seekers
In May 2023, an article by Matt
Treacy in Gript asserted the basic
principle, about the Dublin
Convention and Regulations as
outlined “by Minister Simon Harris,
is that a person seeking asylum
ought to make an application and
have that application processed in
the first member state that allows
them to enter”.
Like a lot of Gript stuff it is
clueless. Gript made waves on 10
January 2024 pointing out that Leo
Varadkar had this basic principle
wrong in 2019. On and on its Deputy
News Editor, Ben Scallan, went
about this. But it did not point out
that it appears to have made the
same assumption itself consistently.
Leo Varadkar then did a service by
pointing out the error in
interpretations like these. Under
pressure at a press conference from
the same Mr Scallan on 6 January,
Varadkar said errors like the ones
Gript purveys were disinformation
by the hard right.
In fact the errors seem to be
pervasive not just on the right.
No matter. The reality is the Dublin
Regulation III provides that:
“The criteria for establishing
responsibility for examination
of the asylum application are,
in hierarchical order:
• family considerations,
• recent possession of visa or
residence permit in a
Member State and
•
whether the applicant has
entered the EU irregularly, or
regularly”.
Crucially, only where the superior
criteria do not apply does the Dublin
Regulation III require that the first EU
member state where an international
protection application is made must
handle the claim.
It is crucial to note that the country
handling the claim is not necessarily
the country in which asylum is
decided.
There is no obligation on asylum-
seekers to make an application in
the first Dublin Regulations country
they arrive in, but when they do
apply in that or any Dublin
Regulation country, that first country
is obliged to decide the claim.
There is no legal prohibition on
even economic migrants from
making applications for
international protection in Dublin
Regulations countries that were not
where they made their first
application – it is just that they can
expect to have their cases sent to
the Dublin Regulations country
where the first application was
made.
All countries have a legal
obligation under the Dublin III
Regulation to handle all applications
for international protection initially
even if it is just to make a
determination to remit the case for a
decision in the country where the
first application is made.
It states at Article 3.1: “Member
States shall examine [meaning
decide] any application for
international protection by a third-
country national or a stateless
person who applies on the territory
of any one of them, including at the
border or in the transit zones. The
application shall be examined by a
single Member State, which shall be
the one which the criteria set out in
Chapter III indicate is responsible”.
Nothing more. The emphasis is on
decision by a single Member State.
On 9 February Ben Scallan
interviewed Dr Mehari Fisseha, a
man with a PhD in Migration Studies
and several other related fields, who
said:
“Leo Varadkar, in my view, should
get better advice...He
misunderstood what the Dublin
Convention is all about” and “about
Ireland’s asylum system the first
point of country is the place where
he should seek asylum. That’s what
it means, the Dublin Convention.
And then when you seek asylum in
those first-point-of-entry countries
your fingerprints and identities
should be taken so they can be
stored in the Eurodac form in
Luxembourg”. He’s utterly wrong.
He fails to recognise that a country
handling the claim is very dierent
from being the country in which
asylum is sought. And fingerprinting
is an obligation for the country
which first receives an application
and not the country whose border
with a non Dublin Regulations
“frontline” country the applicant
first crossed.
The Dublin Regulation places
obligations on states not on asylum-
seekers. Gript doesn’t understand or
care. Less still does Dr Mehari
Fisseha, a most elusive scholar,
despite having two PhDs and eight
masters degrees, Mind you, it’s not
just Gript. As recently as 1 February,
Senan Moloney was mis-asserting
in the Irish Independent that the
Dublin Convention: “specified that a
person presenting in one country
could be returned for processing –
and likely expulsion – to the state
where they first arrived in the EU”.
Moloney confuses the country of
first application with the frontline
country (of first entry).
If an asylum-seeker arrives in
Ireland having first landed in
another Dublin Regulations country
it is a myth that Ireland somehow
doesn’t have to handle the
application. It must handle it. It’s
just that it doesn’t have to decide it.
That’s all.
The Department of Justice
confirms all this:
“The objective of the Dublin III
Regulation is to ensure an applicant
Gript (and others):
at se on Dublin
A recent intervention by Leo Varadkar was
salutary in highlighting the implications of
the Dublin Convention and Regulations for
the treatment of asylum-seekers
Gript’s grlnded ‘expert’ gets it horribly wrong on the Dublin Convention
44 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 45
has access to the asylum process in
a single, clearly determined EU
country. There is no obligation in the
Refugee Convention or in EU law to
claim asylum in the first safe country
reached by [an asylum-seeker].
A Departmental spokesperson
also told Village the Department “is
aware of misinformation,
disinformation and falsehoods in
circulation in relation to the
International Protection application
process and applicants for such
protection. It takes very seriously its
role to accurately inform the public
on this subject, and welcomes the
eorts of mainstream civic society
and media to challenge such
misinformation”.
Pact on Migration and
Asylum to replace
Dublin Regulations
Meanwhile, on 20 December 2023,
the European Parliament and
Council reached agreement on a
Pact on Migration and Asylum.
The agreement covers five key
proposals of the Pact:
•
Screening Regulation: creating
uniform rules concerning the
identification of non-EU nationals
upon their arrival, thus increasing
the security within the Schengen
area.
•
Eurodac Regulation: developing a
common database to detect
unauthorised movements.
•
Asylum Procedures Regulation:
making asylum, return and border
procedures quicker and more
eective.
•
Asylum Migration Management
Regulation: establishing a new
solidarity mechanism balancing
the current system where a few
countries are responsible for the
vast majority of asylum
applications, and clear rules on
responsibility for asylum
applications.
•
Crisis and Force majeure
Regulation: ensuring that the EU
is prepared in the future to face
situations of crisis, including
instrumentalisation of migrants.
Gript on refugees nd
sylum-seekers
Gript has been utterly out of its
depth in covering regulation of
refugees and asylum-seekers. You
would assume it wants it that way.
On the other hand the numbers of
asylum-seekers are challenging in
an over-stoked housing market.
The fcs on refugees
nd sylum-seekers
20% of Ireland’s population is now
‘foreign born’. That is very high by
international standards.
The net issue in examining the
merits of an asylum application is
whether a person has a well-
founded fear of being persecuted in
his or her country of origin.
There are around 104,000
Ukrainian who have been given
temporary protection in Ireland, all
having arrived in the last two years.
Refugees are essentially successful
asylum-seekers but all Ukrainians
are given “temporary protection”
with the same rights as refugees.
There has been a surge in the
number of Ukrainians arriving in
Ireland in recent days because the
government has announced a
limitation to 90 days for the State
providing free accommodation. It is
also reducing the amount of
standard social welfare payments
for these Ukrainians.
628 Ukrainians were offered
“temporary protection” in the last
week in January. This compares to
390 for the previous week.
13,277 asylum applications were
received in Ireland last year, slightly
fewer than in 2022. In 2024 it is
expected that 14,000 decisions will
be made on such applications. The
highest number of applications last
year were from Georgia, Algeria,
Nigeria, Somalia and Afghanistan.
Some of the whining about the
treatment of refugees and asylum-
seekers over recent months is
justified. Georgia and Algeria are
now to be recognised as safe
countries, somewhat belying the
scrupulousness of the process of
safe-designation.
Procedures
Some elementary procedures have
not been applied.
As a result of protests,
Government announced in late
January that failed asylum-seekers
would be deported rather than left
to their own devices to somehow
“self-deport”. Admittedly the
problem is less acute than it might
appear: failed asylum-seekers lose
all state supports and, since they do
not have a PPSN number, it is
dicult for them to work.
Protestors also have a point about
the documentation of asylum-
seekers. In late January, the Irish
Refugee Council did remove from its
website a claim they had repeatedly
made that asylum applicants have
their fingerprints checked against
criminal databases, after being
contacted by a Gript investigation
which showed the claim was not
true.
Government needs to stringently
fingerprint asylum-seekers and
refugees since the border régime is
not designed to deal with “irregular”
immigrants.
In this as in much else common
sense, decency and honesty will
take you quite far.
Gript hs been uerly
ou of is deph in
covering regulion
of refugees nd
sylum-seekers. You
would ssume i
wns i h wy
