The University Philosophical Society (the Phil) held their weekly chamber debate last Thursday under the motion “this house believes Ireland is unwelcoming towards immigrants”. The debate, hosted in collaboration with Trinity Politics Society, saw the motion pass by a small margin.
The Registrar of the Phil, Killian Brennan Roche, began the night’s proceedings by announcing that last week’s chamber debate, “This house would ban TikTok”, boasted the highest attendance ever of a Phil debate in the society’s 341 year history.
He joked that this fact shows that Trinity students care more about TikTok than they do immigrants, and continued his speech with a chamber-wide rendition of the Irish traditional folk song ‘The Rattlin’ Bog’.
The debate was initiated by the first proposition speaker, Anthony Adewuyi, who lamented the normalisation of non-black people openly saying the n-word, saying that this facet of Irish society proves widespread racial ignorance.
He spoke of last year’s riots in Dublin, after which he said there was a period of 36 hours during which the city centre was a no-go area for people of colour. He further coupled this point with personal experiences of his own, and those of his father and younger brother.
Olivia Headon, who also spoke for the proposition, recounted her many years of experience working for charities and NGOs concerned with migrant welfare and the reception of asylum seekers.
“Government is a representation of its people”, she stated, and thus connected Irish society more broadly to what she called the Government’s shameful use of Direct Provision centres and their indifference to asylum seekers being made homeless upon arrival in the State.
“Homeless asylum seekers have been left without sanitation facilities, access to healthcare, and obviously accommodation”, she said.
Gráinne Ní Aillín concluded the proposition’s winning arguments by urging the audience to not “engage in a familiar national tendency” in believing in Irish exceptionalism in relation to anti-racism, anti-colonial solidarity.
She noted Ireland’s relative ease in accepting Polish migrants, but contrasted this with what she described as Ireland’s poor reception to asylum seekers typically from the Middle East and Sub-Saharan African, stating that “Ireland has struggled to accept” non-EU migrants into society. She then highlighted anti-migrant protests across the island, namely in Roscrea and Newtownmountkennedy,
Oisín Ward acted as first opposition speaker, and began his speech by taking off his jumper, revealing a pro-Palestine T-shirt underneath, to which he admitted to “virtue signalling”, before continuing by saying: “I fear I’m going to be called a racist for being on this side”.
He stressed that he “cannot and will not condone the behaviour that Anthony [Adewuyl] talked about”, and called Direct Provision “nothing short of appalling”.
He took issue with what he saw as an “inherent” feature of the motion, saying that “there are plenty of examples, not in the media” due to them not being “click bait or sensationalism”, of Ireland being welcoming towards immigrants.
He concluded by blaming economic injustice in inner-city communities and rural towns on the recent rise in far-right popularity., emphasising this over the issue of inherent racial ignorance or racism.
The debate was concluded by Wilbur Xuan, a student from Beijing who has lived in Ireland since he was a teenager. Primarily a comedic speech, he focused on his own personal experience as an immigrant, saying that practically every immigrant he knows in Ireland has a positive view of the country.
The Phil hosts debates on various political, social, and philosophical questions every Thursday in the Graduates Memorial Building, alongside regularly scheduled paper readings and other events.
