Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has suggested that there are \u201ctoo many\u201d immigrants and that Ireland \u201ccan\u2019t be taking in people from the Congo\u201d.<\/p>\n
A video, which appeared to be taken during a by-election canvass in Dublin Central, was shared on social media following a conversation between the former Fianna F\u00e1il leader and a woman at a doorstep.<\/p>\n
The video was filmed without Mr Ahern\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n
Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s by-election candidate, John Stephens, is an ally of the former Taoiseach and is contesting the election in Mr Ahern\u2019s former Dublin Central constituency. The by-election will be held on May 22 to fill the seat vacated by former Fine Gael minister Paschal Donohoe following his departure to the World Bank in November.<\/p>\n
The video shows a canvasser calling Mr Ahern over to a doorstep to speak to a woman who \u201cwants to say hello\u201d.<\/p>\n
She raised concerns about \u201cglobalism\u201d and the \u201chordes of foreigners coming into our country\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we not close our borders?\u201d she asked. \u201cCan we not be like Poland, and have safe, clean streets?<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these people coming in. The Indians, that have a space programme, all these Muslims have 47 countries. All these Africans that have a massive continent and massive natural resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the woman said to Mr Ahern that the people coming in \u201cdon\u2019t give a shit about Ireland\u201d, he responded \u201cno\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there are too many coming in,\u201d Mr Ahern said. \u201cI think we have to take some in. I have no problems with the Ukrainians. In fairness, Russia moved in, and [there is] war in their country.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut a lot of the Ukrainians are going back now. We still have a lot of Poles here.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the ones I worry about are the Africans. I agree with you on the Africans. We can\u2019t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places. I think there\u2019s too many from those places.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about Muslim people, Mr Ahern said he does not \u201cworry about this generation\u201d, but he does worry about the \u201cnext generation and the kids growing up\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s when I think the problem will be. I said this to [justice minister] Jim O\u2019Callaghan. That\u2019s where the problem comes,” Mr Ahern said.<\/p>\n
The woman went on to tell Mr Ahern that she was also concerned about transgender issues and hate speech laws.<\/p>\n
She then told him that she had been recording him and was going to post it on social media, because she believed it was \u201cimportant that you’ve said that you disagree with Jim O\u2019Callaghan\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Ahern denied that he had disagreed with Mr O\u2019Callaghan, as the woman accused him of \u201cnot sticking up for the Irish\u201d.<\/p>\n
The woman then called Mr Ahern a \u201cliar\u201d as he walked away from the door.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Mr Ahern told the Irish Examiner that \u201cBertie wasn\u2019t aware he was being recorded until the end of the conversation\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern has suggested that there are \u201ctoo many\u201d immigrants and that Ireland \u201ccan\u2019t be taking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[895,61,1629,60,43],"class_list":["post-445350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-immigration","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}