Jim O'Callaghan
speaker
581 appearances
4 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 31 Jul
Jim O'Callaghan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 2.
Appearances
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.
I think the comments were inappropriate, but I don't believe Bertie Hearn is a racist.
Well, again, you know, I'm not in the business of directing people what they should or shouldn't do.
Just at the outset as well, like I suppose it is a reflection of modern society that people are now secretly recording people when they're having conversations with them.
You know, that's something that I must say I don't like the sound of that.
I think if I'm having a conversation with somebody
that it isn't recorded, unless they're going to tell me it's going to be recorded.
But listen, it has attracted a lot of attention.
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