{"id":48081,"date":"2025-09-28T04:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/48081\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T04:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:24:15","slug":"sinn-fein-fergus-power-and-rank-hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/48081\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in, Fergus Power, and rank hypocrisy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The incredible story of the wild ride on the multi-million euro gravy train that is asylum accommodation provision by the owners of the humble Igo caf\u00e9 is now well-known, thanks largely to the dogged and meticulous efforts of my colleague and friend<\/a>, Matt Treacy, whose persistence in delving into company records and other vaults of information has largely enriched our knowledge of who is benefiting from this insanely lucrative sector.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Matt detailed, Igo Emergency Management Services, has received more than \u20ac57 million from the Irish taxpayer for providing asylum services in the state \u2013 making them one of the biggest players in this lucrative sector.<\/p>\n

The IGO Caf\u00e9 on the Sallynoggin Road was registered as a business in October 2017 as jointly owned on a moderate shareholding of \u20ac50 each by Romanian national Cristina Andries with an address in D\u00fan Laoghaire and Ann Murphy of Borriskane, County Tipperary. Both are still owners and have overseen a remarkable upturn in fortunes since the IGO Caf\u00e9 \u201cbecame involved with IGO Management Services\u201d on June 1, 2022.<\/p>\n

The little caf\u00e9 began modestly and reported tangible assets of just \u20ac9,686 at the end of 2020. It described itself as involved in \u201crestaurant and mobile food services\u201d and employed just three people including one of the directors.<\/p>\n

David Mooney was listed as owner of Igo EMS<\/a> \u2013 established in September 2023 but in receipt of payments for asylum accommodation for asylum applicants and Ukrainians since 2022 \u2013 on an application for an\u00a0 asylum accommodation centre in Blanchardstown.<\/p>\n

He was previously involved in a lap dancing venue, and ended up giving evidence which led to convictions for protection racketeers who were supposedly involved in the Continuity IRA, which led to him being placed in a Witness Protection Programme. A caf\u00e9 associated with interesting characters then.<\/p>\n

The involvement of Igo in the asylum SECTOR came to attention of Ballybrack activist Fergus Power before almost anyone else. He had proposals which would have seen place large numbers of migrants placed into local communities without consultation or consent.<\/p>\n

Power was protesting outside the Igo caf\u00e9 in Sallynoggin, holding an Irish Lives Matter poster, when he was confronted by a Sinn F\u00e9in activist named Shane O\u2019Brien, an interaction which caused no end of excitement for those online who are committed to \u2018fighting the fash\u2019 \u2013 which mostly seems to involve punching down on working-class people and feeling free to call them \u201cscumbags\u201d and other classist insults which are still, it seems, perfectly acceptable amongst the same people who would have you hung drawn and quartered for \u2018misgendering\u2019 someone.<\/p>\n

Most of those cheering on O\u2019Brien were absolutely delighted when Garda\u00ed arrested Power which is the desired outcome, apparently, for the anarchists fighting to demolish the evil capitalist state and all it\u2019s apparatus.\u00a0 (These are either very stupid or very confused people. Or they know exactly what they\u2019re doing, because they support the incredible accumulation of wealth in a very short time for those who see the opportunities in the asylum sector. There\u2019s gold in them thar migrant centres.)<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien, who won a council seat for Sinn Fe\u00edn in Killiney-Shankill in 2014, but failed to be re-elected in 2019,\u00a0 was well primed to start hurtling accusations at Power. He didn\u2019t address the main point being made by the protest \u2013 which was that Igo was involved in facilitating the imposition of centres for migrants on already-stretched communities.<\/p>\n

It was peculiar to see a Sinn F\u00e9in candidate \u2013 surely a member of a party well accustomed to protest \u2013 hurling accusations at Power, accusing the Ballybrack man of being a \u2018fascist and a liar\u2019.\u00a0 But what Power was saying was true, and now another Matt \u2013 Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s leading light, Matt Carthy \u2013\u00a0 has used his time in the D\u00e1il and at Committe in recent weeks to belatedly raise the rags to riches tale of the Igo caf\u00e9 and call for transparency.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like a very bad joke really. Is Carthy now a fascist in the eyes of the party representative that attacked Power?<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in spokesperson on Justice and Chairperson of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, Matt Carthy TD, speaking following a meeting with the Minister for Justice on IPAS, has said that the government has a lot of work to do to end IPAS profiteering.<\/p>\n

\u201cA small number of people have become millionaires through a system that has clearly lacked checks and balances and for which there was no transparency or accountability. We have seen companies with no track record in the provision of accommodation that have moved into the business of providing IPAS accommodation see their profits skyrocket over a couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe case of Igo caf\u00e9 is illustrative of the absurdity of what has been taking place. In 2024 Igo (Caf\u00e9 turned IPAS accommodation providers), one of the largest beneficiaries of state contracts, paid themselves \u20ac4.6mn in 2024. Three years earlier, this company made after tax profits of just \u20ac2,092.<\/p>\n

So, according a Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Igo cafe is illustrative of IPAS \u201cprofiteering\u201d and we need transparency and accountability about how the whole asylum caper is playing out? Isn\u2019t that what Fergus Power was saying when he was confronted in Sallynoggin, and then hounded online by the Shinner bots?<\/p>\n

Those bots, and the Shinners on the ground, have learned some lessons, of course, from two bad elections where they lost buckets of votes to ordinary people who were angry at the party for refusing to address local concerns on immigration. They cries of \u2018racism\u2019 and \u2018facism\u2019 are a lot more muted now.\u00a0 T\u00e1 an part\u00e1\u00ed l\u00e1n de Tadhg a\u2019 d\u00e1 thaobh.<\/p>\n

Fergus Power, an ordinary man, was amongst to first to actually seek to hold truth to power, something the left imagine they are doing while stuffing NGOs full of taxpayers\u2019 cash and attacking local activists who are challenging the system. Sinn F\u00e9in owe him an apology. Otherwise their old guff about the Igo caf\u00e9 and IPAS profiteering is fooling no-one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The incredible story of the wild ride on the multi-million euro gravy train that is asylum accommodation provision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35094,35095,61,35096,60,43,3415],"class_list":{"0":"post-48081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-fergus-power","9":"tag-hypocrisy","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-igo-cafe","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sinn-fein"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48081","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=48081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}