Eoin O'Riordan

Well, unfortunately, what has happened is that the European People's Party, of which Fine Gael are a member, have decided to rip up the convention of centrist politics, where the S&D, which is my group, the Labour Party's group, the Greens and Renew, which would be Fianna Fáil's group, that held the centre ground

There was always an understanding that we would hold the centre ground, work with each other and move forward with progressive politics and policies.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, look, my frustration, which I was saying earlier, is that this is another example of Fine Gael's group in the European Parliament making deals and cutting deals with the far right, which they never did in the past.

So whereas we used to have progressive, centrist politics between the centre-left and the centre-right, they come up with pathways which were compassionate, understanding,

and, you know, rules in international law, which now have, as Fine Gael's group, cutting deals with a ragtag bunch of fascists and racists.

And this flies completely in the face of what Fine Gael ministers say when it comes to undocumented Irish citizens in the US.

And I'll quote Minister McEntee, who is a Fine Gael minister, of this year, in March of this year,

Addressing the situation of undocumented Irish citizens in the United States and working to secure legal pathways for them to live and work in the U.S.

remain important for the government.

Immigration matters feature regularly in our political engagement with the U.S.

So effectively what you have here is Fine Gael in Europe saying that we have to be robust, we have to move people who have no status to countries that they have no connection with,

We need to open the door for member states to have warrantless raids on hospitals or workplaces where these individuals may be working or may be residing.

But then they go to the United States and they have a much more compassionate, different view of undocumented or illegal Irish citizens.

I note Regina's comments in The Guardian where she said there's an awful lot of misinformation

around immigration status.

In May of last year, I challenged the Fine Gael Minister on Migration, Colm Brophy, to produce a robust national public awareness campaign in Ireland to tell people in Ireland the rights and wrongs, the facts and figures around our asylum system, our immigration system.

And he promised then, in May of last year, that such a campaign was imminent.

And a year later, there's absolutely no sign of it.