Tomás Ó Flatharta

A friend has begun vital work – examination of the 2025 FFFGBG Programme for Government, which contains lots of measures these parties did not propose during the recent general election campaign.

---

Alarming things

The programme for government has a few alarming things in it – (and the government has a few alarming people in it) eg there’s lots of commitment to reduce carbon emissions alongside actions and plans that will directly increase carbon emissions. There’s a bunch of mangled science around the particular characteristics of methane and it’s basically a valentine card to those involved in data center construction.

Shutting people up over Israel’s genocide

It also has a commitment to recognise a particular and highly contested definition of anti- semitism which would help those who want us to shut up about Israel’s genocide and occupation – and which was as far as I can remember not part of any single party or politician’s election platform. It would be very interesting to find out how and from where and on whose request this made it into the programme.

”Give effect to the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
‘Working Definition of Antisemitism’
and implement the EU declaration on
‘Fostering Jewish Life in Europe’’

International protection:

On migration and international protection we REALLY need to look out because as worded in the programme for government it appears that the state plans to restrict the movement of those who are here seeking protection and to deny others the right to seek protection in the first place. That might sound innocuous – and like some kind of temporary pause in someone’s life while the paperwork is sorted out but in reality everywhere this is the case it results in a system of internment without trial- in the UK people get stuck in detention centres for up to years at a time, in Australia they try to keep people in camps in the outback or on pacific Islands in complete denial of their human rights.

Strengthening Partition – Closing the Border between Both parts of Ireland

” Ensure applicants are provided with
accommodation WITH RESTRICTIONS on their
movement to ensure the integrity of the
process.”

”Provide new dedicated accommodation
for those who are being processed in the
border procedure and those who are due
to be returned to another country”

”Those who are processed under the
border procedure will NOT BE AUTHORISED
to enter Ireland. Their applications,
appeals and removal decisions must
be processed within three months. This
will include people who have arrived by
crossing the land border with Northern
Ireland.”

Ireland’s History of Mass Incarceration

With Ireland’s history of mass incarceration- in laundries, mental institutions, mother and baby institutions, prisons, industrial schools etc and with the institutional memory of the institution as the answer within our public and civil service and even charities and NGOs we really can not allow this idea to take hold because we know what happens. Like direct provision for example which was a temporary solution but which is now entering its third decade, detaining people – if it is even allowed to become a temporary exceptional practice will become the normal practice before too long.

NB in our current system we don’t actually detain people without a process as a policy – sometimes people are arrested on arrival and may spend time in prison (arguably still a breach of the intentions of the Geneva convention) and sometimes people at the other end of the application process who have received a deportation order may be detained pending deportation, but in general people who come here seeking asylum are free to move and live where they want – if they have the means to do so. People who avail of the direct provision system don’t have choices about where they are located and are often moved around at will and without notice but they are (and should be!) free to come and go from their accommodation except for certain rules about occupancy (i.e they can only be away from the accommodation a certain number of nights etc)

but it’s worth remembering

1. There has been almost twenty years of a campaign to end the system of direct provision – for really good reasons that it institutionalises people, forces them to live at extremely close quarters to others for extended periods of time (years in many cases) denies them autonomy and human rights, places them in remote locations under the control of centre management and prevents them from being able to integrate and build their lives.
2. The last programme for government promised to end direct provision in its programme and instead it extended it and its even worse bedfellow- emergency accommodation centre – which are the same as DP centres but more temporary, less inspected and less regulated. Also, since the Catherine Day report and the resultant prog for government we have seen the normalising of tent and camp accommodation for IP applicants and also the widespread lack of ANY provision of accommodation at all for IP applicants which has resulted in the tent cities and extreme insecurity for IP applicants with up to 3000 people in such situations at any given time.
3. We have moved from being on the brink of ending direct provision to the point now, where we are at risk of changing it into a system of internment. Basically the situation is now way way worse than when we began campaigning. This is very stark and is a situation largely caused by mismanagement and bad racist policies here – largely emanating from the long standing culture within the Department of Justice, (in this programme for government the management of accommodation for international protection applicants will transfer back to the DOJ) and the winds of far right anti-migrant rhetoric that are spreading across the world.

Licence to Detain People At Will

Anyway, that’s my rant over- there is a whole lot more to discuss about the PFG but what could look like a stray few words in it are very intentional and likely to be leapt on by the far right. While I can not see the government managing at all to provide the locations for mass detention of people seeking protection they are talking about I think they will use this promise to make examples of some people and to give them a license to detain people at will.