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THE FIRST TIME I spoke out during protests like these, I got it wrong.
It was November 2022. A new emergency accommodation centre had opened in East Wall, and protests followed.
I posted a long response online: trying to defend my values, push back against the far right, and bring calm.
I meant every word. But I still got it wrong.
By the time most people got to the end of that post, the message was lost. It felt like a lecture. I sounded like I was talking at people I’ve known my whole life. People who were scared, frustrated and being ignored — again.
And I’ve been thinking about that moment again this week, as new anti-immigration protests flared up in Dublin 8.
I know what it’s like to grow up in a part of Dublin that always comes last in the queue.
Basin Lane is a working-class community that’s been waiting for decades. Waiting for housing. Waiting for school places. Waiting for some form of regeneration. Instead, what they’ve seen is luxury hotels going up, Diageo/Guinness expanding around them, and the same old silence from the State.
The people protesting there aren’t extremists. They’re neighbours. They’re parents. Some are raising kids with additional needs and no support. Some are living in damp, overcrowded flats, waiting on housing lists that go nowhere.
These communities, like the one in Dublin 8, look across the road and see hotels going up, shiny new buildings with locked gates, and wonder why their own lives keep getting left behind. They are people who’ve been told for years that there’s nothing left for them and now feel like someone else is being given the last few scraps.
That’s not to say the community is voiceless. Far from it. There are brilliant activists working every day to highlight the issues, and my colleague Jen Cummins has been doing the work on the ground too, despite the frustration of decades of State neglect. But when decisions are made behind people’s backs, and the reality on the ground is ignored by those with the power to change it, it’s no surprise that people feel bypassed.
That’s not hatred. That’s fear.
Fear of being left behind again.
Fear that this city has been sold off, and that you’re the only one still waiting your turn.
And that fear can be hijacked. That’s what the far right knows how to do. They show up in that silence, not with answers, but with scapegoats.
They don’t build housing. They don’t fix schools. They point fingers and then disappear once the damage is done.
If we focus only on the noise, we’ll miss the signal. Underneath the protests are real questions about fairness, planning and trust.
And this isn’t just a Dublin 8 or East Wall story. The same thing happens in more affluent areas, only there, the protest comes with High Court injunctions instead of placards. The difference is in how those protests are reported, handled and judged.
The problem is how we talk about it. How quickly we jump to judgment without looking at what made people vulnerable to this in the first place.
What I learned in East Wall is that values on their own aren’t enough. You can say the right thing, and still do it the wrong way. You can mean well, and still lose people if you don’t start by meeting them where they are. That’s the cost of being too late with the truth and too quick with the tone.
Since then, I’ve tried to do things differently. To speak plainer, to listen harder, and to stop assuming anyone needs to be corrected before they need to be understood. Because people can be brought back. But only if we leave room for them to come. If we write everyone off, the far right will keep picking them up.
So let’s be clear:
Ireland isn’t full.
But too many of our communities are running on empty.
The centre in question in the Liberties is now not going to open. But the damage is done. Another working-class community has been painted as hostile. Another missed opportunity to speak honestly and to listen with respect.
And this Government isn’t just making mistakes. It’s making choices. Choices to keep working-class communities out of the room until it’s too late. Choices to frame people seeking refuge as a burden instead of neighbours. Choices to ramp up deportations instead of investing in support, cohesion, or anything that might make this sustainable.
Instead of confronting the far right, they tiptoe around them. They speak in vague terms about “public concern,” while letting intimidation and misinformation set the tone. Every time pressure builds, they hesitate, and in that silence, fear takes hold. And they rely on the rest of us turning on each other before we ever turn on them.
That’s the game. That’s always been the game.
So let’s not give them what they want.
Let’s not hand them our hurt.
Let’s not do their work for them.
The people showing up to protests aren’t the enemy. The people arriving here with nothing certainly aren’t either. The enemy is the one who created the crisis, left the country to carry it, and then handed it over to the far right to divide us when things boiled over.
We don’t stop the far right by winning arguments online. We stop them by building trust where the Government has burned it. We bring people back not with spin, but with truth. With clarity. And with solidarity that doesn’t flinch.
It’s not enough to talk about values. We need to prove that they belong to everyone, especially to the people who’ve been failed the longest.
Gary Gannon is a Social Democrats TD for Dublin Central and is the party’s spokesperson for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration.
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