DOCTORS IN BALLAGHADERREEN, Co Roscommon, have refuted a claim spread online by an election candidate for the anti-immigration National Party, that they have special days devoted to only seeing patients from Syria or Ukraine.
The claim was made by Paul McWeeney, who is described on the National Party website as a carpenter from Carrick-on-Shannon Co. Leitrim. Its description continues: “He is a returned emigrant, having spent 10 years in Australia. Paul is recently married and is deeply concerned with the plight of young working families being unable to afford a home.”
On 9 January, McWeeney tweeted: “A work colleague of mine tried to make a GP appointment for his sick baby in #ballaghaderreen this morning only to be told “sorry, we only see syrians and Ukrainians on a Monday” ‼️ Is this common practice around the country? @HSELive #plantation”
The term “plantation” is often used by Irish advocates of the white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which McWeeney has also tweeted about.
A screenshot of the tweet with the title: “Meanwhile, in ‘things that never happened’…” quickly shot to the top of the Ireland subreddit, an online discussion community with more than 625,000 members.
The poster was right to be sceptical; there is no evidence that McWeeney’s tweet is accurate.
Ballaghaderreen is a small town that has been praised for its work welcoming refugees, including an award given to local teenagers for helping to welcome Syrians to the area.
Due to its small size, it was possible for The Journal to contact every GP doctor’s office listed on pages such as the Irish College of General Practitioners, goldenpages.ie, locallife.ie, bestcarecompare.com and Google Maps.
All the offices denied that they engaged in such a practise, or that there was any truth to the claim.
Some GP offices clarified that they treat refugees on any day of the week, just like any other patients.
Locals who spoke with The Journal confirmed that there were no other GP offices in the town not included in our list.
The Journal has also contacted McWeeney for verifiable details about his tweet.
As of the time of writing, McWeeney has not provided any information to back up his claim, despite being active on Twitter since questions were put to him there.
Verdict
As there is no evidence to back up the claim, the person who made the claim has not given verifiable details, and all the listed doctor’s offices in the town have denied it, we find the claim that a GP in Ballaghaderreen only see Syrians or Ukrainians on Mondays to be FALSE.
The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here
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