Could it be that brandishing the word racism all the time is just not as effective anymore? That was my first thought when I read this week that Fianna Fáil Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan had come to the defence of Bertie Ahern. The former Taoiseach hit the headlines for going a little bit further than simply appeasing an angry voter on the doors during the Dublin bye-election canvass.
“I agree with you on the Africans. We can’t be taking people from the Congo and all these places. I think there’s too many from those places,” Ahern said in the exchange – recorded without his knowledge – where he also admitted that he was concerned about second-generation Muslims.
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