Current Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, Ireland’s current Taoiseach, told lawmakers that Ahern’s critical comments on Africans and Muslims did not reflect the policies of his own center-right coalition government or of today’s Fianna Fáil.
“I want to be very clear, from my perspective and the party’s perspective, we do not approve of those specific comments,” Martin said in response to opposition attacks.
Rising immigration has become a recurring flashpoint issue in Ireland since 2023, when an Algerian migrant stabbed three young children, one critically, along with an adult carer outside their central Dublin school. That attack triggered rioting and fanned a wave of arson attacks and protests nationwide against housing for people seeking asylum.
Arguments over immigration are again a feature of the May 22 by-election for a vacant parliamentary seat in largely working-class Dublin Central, the most ethnically diverse constituency in Ireland. Several candidates in the 14-strong field represent left-wing opposition parties that defend the rights of immigrants.
Fianna Fáil’s candidate, John Stephens, wasn’t expected to win the Dublin Central seat even before the sudden spotlight on Ahern, who once dominated the politics of the area but has been a party outcast since resigning amid a corruption scandal in 2008.
Ahern admitted Wednesday that his love of door-to-door canvassing, honed to maximum effect in the early days of the internet, has become politically perilous in a smartphone-armed society.
“It’s a different world, this social media thing,” he said. “You talk to people at doors and you don’t expect people to be taping you.”