Comments on immigration made by former Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar during an interview with The Observer last week have sparked controversy in Ireland from an opposing party.
During the interview, Varadkar, although touting the economic benefits of immigration and warning against populism and prejudice in Ireland, criticized the rising levels of immigration in the country.
“The majority of people think that the numbers have been too big in recent years, and they’re right,” he said. “A country of 5 million people seeing its population rise by 2% a year, which is what’s happening at the moment, is too fast.”
Varadkar attributed the difficulty in controlling immigration to the country’s single labor market with both the United Kingdom and the European Union, the war in Ukraine and the influx of asylum seekers in recent years.
Varadkar’s remarks were reported on by numerous media outlets in Ireland, including RTE, the Irish Times and the Irish Independent. The publicity of his comments prompted a response from the leader of the Irish Labour Party, Ivana Bacik, during a Labour Party event Friday.
Bacik described Varadkar’s comments as “deeply inappropriate” and “a really new low in political narrative.”
Bacik specifically attacked Varadkar for not taking into account humanitarian factors driving immigration and the economic needs of the country.
“Every hospital, every healthcare facility, every school, every childcare facility is looking for staff,” she said.
The Labour Party is one of the smaller parties in the Irish Parliament, with six seats in the Dáil Éireann and four seats in Seanad Éireann; however, the current President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, served as president of the Labour Party before assuming the office of President of Ireland in 2011.
