Left-wing Opposition politicians have made fresh criticisms of T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris, claiming remarks he made about migration numbers in Ireland being too high were \u201cirresponsible\u201d and \u201cdivisive\u201d. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday Mr Harris said he \u201cabsolutely\u201d stood over his comments which have drawn criticism over the last week adding: \u201cI think it\u2019s quite extraordinary how many people want to shut down debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters in advance of a Cabinet meeting Mr Harris said: \u201cThe Irish people want to know that their Government is putting in place a system [for immigration] that is fair and firm. Let me be really clear: Migration is a good thing. I said that last week when I made the comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are parts of our public services that would fall over were it not for people coming to our country and contributing.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he added: \u201cYou know what is also a good thing?… having a system that has rules that are applied, making sure that there\u2019s a common sense and a social cohesion element to all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
[\u00a0Forty-five adults and seven children deported from Ireland to GeorgiaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n The Fine Gael leader said there was \u201ca limit\u201d to what Ireland could do for immigrants.<\/p>\n Simon Harris<\/a> said that recent data from the Economic and Social Research Institute<\/a> shows that the population was growing \u201cway faster than baseline projections\u201d and he said this has an impact on public services and housing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe conversation about migration isn\u2019t just about international protection, it\u2019s about our population growth in general,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cRoughly speaking, for every 10,000 [who] people come into our country, around 3,000 more homes are needed.<\/p>\n \u201cSo let\u2019s actually have a rational, calm informed debate that doesn\u2019t seek to label people, shout them down, box them into certain positions.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday Labour TD Ged Nash accused Mr Harris of \u201cirresponsible comments\u201d last week and claimed they were \u201cclearly a response to the disappointing, as he would see, performance of Fine Gael in the [presidential] election\u201d.<\/p>\n Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon referred to Mr Harris\u2019s comments last week and said: \u201cWhen I challenged him on that… he said that we\u2019re trying to shut down debate. We\u2019re absolutely not trying to shut down debate.\u201d<\/p>\n He argued that Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il have failed in relation to Ireland\u2019s migration systems and claimed that rather than acknowledging that, they were \u201cgoing into a playbook\u201d that has been used by [UK Reform party leader] Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. <\/p>\n People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Paul Murphy accused Mr Harris and others in Government of the \u201cscapegoating\u201d of asylum seekers while Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger accused the T\u00e1naiste of \u201cbeing divisive\u201d. <\/p>\n In his remarks last week Mr Harris said: \u201cOur migration numbers are too high\u201d and \u201cone of the reasons I think they are so high is that there are too many people who come to this country and are told they do not have a right to be here, and it is taking too long for them to leave the country.\u201d<\/p>\n