Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
You can WhatsApp us this morning 087 1400 106 or email clareburn at newstalk.com. But first, I'm joined now in the studio by Piers Doherty, Sinn Féin Deputy Leader, Finance Spokesperson and TD for Donegal. You're welcome to the programme. Thanks, Clare. And thank you for coming in.
The first thing I want to talk to you about, and we see the scenes playing out here on the TV screen in front of us, what happened in Belfast overnight after a Sudanese man was charged with attempted murder. And we heard in the first hour of the programme about gangs of young men going around
beating down the doors of houses, breaking windows, dragging families outside, threatening and in some cases burning houses out and children being taken to stay overnight. We don't know where, but they've no home to go back to. What do you make of it all?
I think it's appalling. I think anybody who's watched the scenes in Belfast over the last 48 hours are really, really shocked. First, you have obviously that attack, that attempted murder and conscious that somebody's before the courts today, which was absolutely horrific and really, really scary.
And people are right to be disgusted and outraged at that happening in the streets anywhere in our island. But that doesn't give people the licence to do what they did last night. And what happened last night was just absolutely appalling. And it has to be condemned from the highest level. We've seen the destruction of property, the destruction of our public service infrastructure in the north.
We've seen businesses being burnt out. And the worst scenes of all was people, masked men, walking the streets, going door to door and burning houses out. And they're images that I've seen in the past, you know, from times back in history, back to, you know, the 1969 when nationalists were burnt from their homes in the pogroms. And they're things that everybody thought was left behind them.
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Chapter 2: What happened in Belfast that sparked outrage?
The only difference today is that it wasn't people looking for Catholics or Irish. It was people looking for somebody with a different colour of skin. And it's simply unacceptable to stoke up that fear, that tension and that hatred in the North. We need community leaders now to stand up and make sure that that is not happening tonight and that the police now need to prosecute those involved.
Community leaders, the police, the politicians, they're one thing and they're saying one thing and we saw them yesterday calling on people not to do this. Social media companies, you know, have to be held to account here as well. Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson and others encouraged that last night.
Well, I think it's clear that there's social media as the platform that a lot of this is organised and through other messaging platforms as well. I heard a reporter who reports on the North speaking today and saying that the same pages that were encouraging people to protest and riot during the flags protest, because the Union Jack wasn't flying over Belfast City Hall.
And also the Brexit protests were the same pages that were activated to rally people to the streets, which were predominantly in loyalist communities. We haven't seen nationalist communities rise in that way.
Obviously, they are disgusted at the attack that happened in North Belfast like anybody else, but they haven't went out and destroyed their communities and used it as an excuse to spread hatred.
Alison Morris was on with us at nine and Alison said that a lot of the accounts she could see today calling for violence were American accounts. with Irish flags on them, calling on people to go out onto the streets. And, you know, it's an absolute frustration, isn't it?
That those social media companies who are hosting those accounts, who are riling people up, driving them out onto the streets, that... They're never going to be in court. They're never going to have to pay for this.
There is a big issue in terms of social media. We've seen it in terms of our own party in Sinn Féin. There's independent analysis that's been done. I don't know who did it a couple of years ago, Lynne Boylan. I've seen her share it a while back showing how many...
tweets were targeted, negative tweets were targeted at Sinn Féin and where they were orchestrated and they were orchestrated outside the country and we're talking about millions and millions of tweets.
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Chapter 3: How does Pearse Doherty perceive the recent unrest?
There is no doubt that we will now see prosecutions. People will be sentenced. People may go to prison as a result of what happened. This was not a bit of crack where young people were out. There was a bus burned to the ground. It was a million euro. There was people's houses going door to door, knocking to see if you had a different tone of skin colour.
To burn your house out is something that I didn't think I would see anywhere in this country. And it has to be stopped. So people will now face serious consequences as a result of that. Many of the people I've seen on social media were masked. There were some people that weren't masked. And there's no doubt it'll take a couple of days, but the PSNI will prosecute them and rightly so.
People have asked questions about Sinn Féin's position on immigration. Can I ask you about the EU Migration and Asylum Pact? Because in that there is a provision that people can be sent to third countries, to countries that they have no connection with, they've never visited before and detained. Do you agree with that?
No, we don't agree with the EU migration pact in the first instance. So just let me be clear in relation to that. We forced the vote in relation to that pact two years ago and again yesterday looking for a debate in relation to it. The reason we don't agree with it is we believe that Ireland is best served by deciding our own migration policies. We are unique. We're not France. We're not Spain.
We are on an island that is partitioned. We share a common travel area with Britain, which is outside the European Union. And the idea that we would hand over these powers to Europe to decide what is in our interest in terms of migration is absolutely wrong. We have to decide ourselves what the best position, the best way that we handle migration.
And migration needs to be controlled and it needs to be enforced. And there needs to be cooperation with other jurisdictions, including Europe, but particularly in terms of Britain because of the common travel area. So there's parts of...
There'll be people texting this programme who will agree with a lot of the measures in that pact, including the one to have ICE-style raids on workplaces and homes, detention provisions for up to 30 months for people who are not allowed to stay here.
The issue here isn't about, just in terms of the pact, the issue here isn't in terms of what the pact is going to be or what the pact may be in the future or what, now that we've opted into this, what Europe may decide and tell us that we have to do. The issue here is that we can do all of this ourselves.
So everything that you've said, if you wanted to, if an Irish government wanted to do that, they could do it themselves. So, you know, you hear the government saying, oh, this will help us to actually process individuals within six months. There is nothing stopping the government from actually making decisions.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the EU Migration and Asylum Pact?
I was talking to a young couple in Galway and they were telling me that they're on the housing waiting list. They've been saving for the last two years and moved into their family room and all that to save on rent. And they were getting the deposit and house prices went up 10%. That means meant house prices went up something like 36,000 in that region in a year. Help to buy is 30,000.
The average help to buy that people draw down is less than that. Well, that's what people always suspect, isn't it?
That those schemes do drive up the price.
It's not suspect. Report after report after report that actually say that it is driving up prices. But even the problem here is since the government introduced help to buy, house prices have gone through the roof and there is no stop, isn't it? And the government doesn't have a plan to actually deal with that issue.
There was another proposal you had around affordable homes where you would bring down the price of them by around 100,000, but the people who bought them wouldn't own the land under them. And it just sounded a bit mad back in the day.
Anybody who lives in an apartment is exactly in that situation. If you look at the government's affordable home scheme, the shared equity scheme... You don't own the house under the government. You actually don't own the house. Forget about even the land. You don't own the house. 20% of the house is owned by the state.
And again, it's about, you know, it's about how we articulate that, how we explain that and all the rest. But, you know, I didn't hear the media go on hell for leather in relation to the government that you're bringing in a scheme that is what? You don't own the house at the end of the day?
Well, there were questions over whether mortgages would be granted in that situation.
Yeah. And mortgages are granted in relation to apartments. And, you know, I have no doubt that mortgages can be granted in relation. Look, a job of government is to try and create doubt and all the rest. And the biggest thing, forget about housing at the minute.
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