Jim O'Callaghan

If you come to Ireland to claim asylum, you have to give your biometric data and you have to go to a screening centre.

And if you don't do that, you'll be detained.

I think it was inadvisable, inappropriate.

I don't think it's racist.

I don't think Bertie Hearn is a racist person.

I'd say Le Mas for years was waiting with Devalier to ever move on, you know.

He was there a very, very long time ago.

Well, I think they were inappropriate.

And I'll come back to Bertie's comments in due course.

But I also think it's important that we're able to have a discussion about immigration.

And a lot of occasions when we're discussing immigration, it's in the context of something that gets heightened publicity, such as the comments of Bertie O'Hearn, or indeed a one-off attack, say, by a migrant in our community.

So it's important that we're able to discuss it outside of

individual examples of where people have found themselves engaged in something that's viewed as inappropriate.

I think it probably was inappropriate of him because he was identifying that some people are less favourable than others because of where they emanate from in terms of the countries they emanate from.

And so in that respect, yeah, I think it was inadvisable, inappropriate.

But not racist.

I don't think it's racist.

I don't think Bertie Hearn is a racist person.

I've known him for a long time.

In terms of the issues that we've had on this island, in terms of trying to stop sectarianism between Catholic and Protestant, particularly in Northern Ireland, I don't think there's anyone on the island who has done as much to build trust and links with the Protestant Unionist community in Northern Ireland as Bertie has.