Could you elaborate?
Are you following me?
The CO’s are circling
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Undocumented immigration amnesty (justice said for years it couldn’t be done), complete overhaul of licensing legislation, hate crime legislation, there’s a couple more things I can’t think of. Each of those alone are more impactful than anything Fitzgerald or Flanagan ever did in the department and will have a positive and lasting legacy.
She’s also dealing/struggling with the mess made of an Garda siochana by her predecessors (oversight a mess and recruitment failing), reform of the asylum process in the middle of a crisis. Those don’t have quick fixes. And I would say the war zone the media would have you believe Dublin is turning into is not the fault of Justice, but health, social welfare and housing problems stored up by FG for ten years or so.
Yeah I suppose it’s depends on your political outlook, particularly for what you’ve said in your first paragraph.
I would also argue that she’s not dealing with the mess very well, or at all. And I think her attitude to the border is terrible, but I’ve said what I’ve to say in that regard many times.
Also, to agree with @mikehunt (I think), she’s no worse than several other ministers who’ve kept their jobs before. But I know that she is under serious pressure and I think the media sense it and smell blood
I don’t think our border policies have changed much in recent years and kneejerk changes in response to crisis or times of pressure rarely work out well. The department of justice has been consistently doing a horrible job on immigration for decades now, pinning that on McEntee seems a bit rich.
The circumstances and numbers arriving have, in my opinion, merited a change. I worked the booths for 18 months before I became one of the big knobs* out there and, in all that time, I never had someone come up to me with no passport looking for asylum. It’s 20 odd a day now.
*promotion to the second lowest grade
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Fair enough. I’ve not seen figures on it and I don’t know what changes you’re suggesting. Legislation doesn’t change overnight.
To add, I don’t know what political outlook has to do with reform of outdated licensing legislation. Or even regularising the immigration status of 20,000 people. These are major reforms that will have long term positive effects that her predecessors failed/refused to address.
No I agree on that. I think an awful lot of migrants coming here are failed by the system, especially those that engage with the system and try to come legally. That needs to be massively sped up. A working holiday for Brazilians rather than forcing them to spend thousands pretending to study English would be a start. Genuine family reunification visas for people who are already here too. No one benefits from having a family scattered across the four corners of Europe.
But that HAS to be coupled with sending people back who wouldn’t engage with the new system. It currently encourages you to break the rules and, aside from lining the pockets of human traffickers, will inevitably lead to criminals coming here and abusing the system or placing vulnerable people in the debt of said human traffickers
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Sure, can’t disagree with any of that. Again, addressing the second part isn’t fixed overnight. And concurrently we have a number of crises going on, in accommodation and public services which is the fault of government going back years and in the war in Ukraine. I don’t see how McEntee should be criticised for that.
To go back to the three big refomrs she initiated, leaving aside your views on them, they clearly show she has been a very active minister. I genuinely can’t think of a single big or good thing initiated in that department by Fitzgerald or Flanagan, McEntee could equally have done nothing. I think that says a lot for her.
People should get used to migrants coming in. This is only the start of it.
Global warming will lead to populated areas on the planet becoming inhabitable.
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Again all true but I don’t think the minister for justice can ride out a breakdown of law and order in the capital.
I also think she needs to return failed EU asylum seekers to other countries (totally legal and practiced by most EU states) immediately.
She’s doing a few things regarding Ukraine too that I disagree with but it’s getting into the weeds a bit to discuss it here.
I’m not calling for her to resign any more than I’d call for the entire government to go (I think they’ve been catastrophic in power) but I’m told she is struggling at the moment.
For what it’s worth too, I know a few people who work closely with her and they speak very highly of her as a person. And the same can definitely not be said for her predecessors. Especially Shatter and Flanagan.
Be grand
Those two were a pair of arseholes and Fitzgerald was stone useless. McDowell before then was a big talker and a complete and utter failure as justice minister. McEntee is by far the best minister the department has seen in a long time.
On riding out the breakdown in law and order, relatively little she can do bar write blank cheques to the gardai for all resources needed, which she has done. In reality she is not the boss of the gardai and doesn’t work with them on planning, that function is gone from her department.
I’d still say the breakdown is the result of years of accumulated failures on the part of other departments, in drug treatment and other services, housing, etc. There’s a crack epidemic across large parts of Dublin and nary a word about it.
while i’m sure the bills she has enacted will have long term benefit, in the short term there is still overcrowding in prisons leading to a weak judiciary, a complete an utter contempt for Gardai in major cities which has led to no fear of consequences and a break down of law and order.
So we’ve got a weakened police force and judiciary and nothing she’s done counteracts that in any meaningful way because of legacy - the same as health - and the longer you kick the can down the road the worse it gets. You can’t keep blaming legacy and doing nothing. The optics for her aren’t good
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The guards when resourced correctly seemed to get on top of the gangland troubles in Limerick in the 00s.
They get a hard time of it but are more than capable.
The problem for McEntee is a lot of what is being used to pump her up (hate crime, immigration amnesty) is stuff the general public (beyond the NGO sector) are almost completely indifferent to. What they do care about is law and order, policing and violence on the streets and this is the only metric that matters to the average punter. The rest, rightly or wrongly, is just window dressing.
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Correct, nobody gives a shit about these hates speech laws except a few weirdos on twitter
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That’s our media for you, forever convincing themselves we’re in the middle of some culture war topic or other.
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