ONE OF IRELAND’S new Senators has said he received death threats and was criticised from all angles when he spoke out about the problem of asylum seekers sleeping rough in Dublin. 

Aubrey McCarthy is the founder of Tiglin and also runs the Lighthouse Café in Dublin city, which provides essentials for people experiencing homelessness and food poverty. 

McCarthy was recently elected to Seanad Éireann after winning the final seat of the three seats available in the University of Dublin (TCD) Constituency. 

In the past couple of years, the Lighthouse Café on Dublin’s Pearse Street became a focal point of the response to International Protection Applicants sleeping rough beside the nearby IPO office on Mount Street.

McCarthy said it got “ridiculous” when at one point he had gardaí giving him advice about his safety. He said among the criticism he received was that the Lighthouse Café was providing assistance at all to asylum seekers. 

“I’ve done this for 20 years with the Irish, we still offered the exact same at The Lighthouse that we’ve always done, except now the nationalities seem to be changing, and we got a lot of backlash for that,” he said. 

McCarthy says he “does not think that the Irish people are racist” but that the way the situation was handled created division. 

“The way it was handled, it encouraged people to question whether we should be accepting all these people in here.

The minister came out and said, we have our obligations under European law. I was interviewed on RTÉ, and I agreed that we have our obligations and I was called far-left.

“Then I went on The Pat Kenny Show, and I discussed that we need to have a rules-based border, that anybody seeking asylum should be given asylum, but anybody that’s playing the system, it shouldn’t be tolerated, they should be sent back immediately. Then I was called far-right.

“I got death threats, there’s one before the courts at the moment, the DPP called it a credible threat to kill or something. So then the guards were out, I had to put up cameras and you’re just thinking no lads, this is ridiculous.”

Queues building up for hot dinner now @LightHomeless cafe on Pearse Street. A lot of genuine people struggling to make ends meet. Huge thanks @AllenBobinac & all @TiglinIreland staff & volunteers for #makingadifferencetogether @LovinDublin @DubCityCouncil @tcdalumni @NCUVeritas pic.twitter.com/GvPoz9skaB

— Aubrey McCarthy (@carthy_aubrey) August 25, 2024

McCarthy has a long history of supporting people who are homeless and those with addiction issues.

The Tiglin charity currently operates nine different centres across the country which seek to assist people in improving their lives. Its services include providing rehabilitation, helping with skills shortages and finding transitional accommodation for people seeking a more secure home. 

McCarthy explains that addiction issues in his own family during his childhood created “chaos” and that this left an imprint on him. 

He describes cycling into what was then an Eastern Health Board office in his native Kildare and asking for help for his family only to be told that he was “too young to deal with and that was the end of that”. 

McCarthy says his work has convinced him that the only way to comprehensively deal with homelessness is to assist people on every level of the process out of it. 

“Unless there are supports throughout the housing process, you’re just wasting money,” he says. 

Making his maiden speech in the Seanad on Wednesday, to this approach:

“I will support mental health initiatives that provide accessible and effective care for those struggling not only with addiction but also with psychological distress.”

As I have learned through my work at Tiglin, it is imperative that mental health services are combined with housing and employment programmes in an holistic approach and a continuum of care.

“Education is very important to me and I am committed to expanding access to higher education, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. “ 

Trinity College

Congratulations to Senators Lynn Ruane, Tom Clonan and Aubrey McCarthy on their election to Seanad Éireann in the historic final election of the University of Dublin constituency.#SeanadÉireann #Seanad25https://t.co/VZ6CyaqxQ5 pic.twitter.com/aNDVjcvRI5

— Trinity College Dublin (@tcddublin) January 31, 2025

As well as McCarthy, sitting Senators Lynn Ruane and Tom Clonan make up the three members from the TCD constituency. 

Two years ago, McCarthy won Trinity Alumnus of the Year and although he says he had to deal with a degree of imposter syndrome, the support of the university afterwards convinced him that he was worthy of representing the college. 

He says TCD Provost Linda Doyle has been a great assistance to him and adds that the college community is an important part of the work in the Lighthouse. 

“At the lighthouse Cafe every night now it’s Trinity alumni that are in there, people that are studying, people that have gone through the college, people that are lecturing in there. They’re my volunteers across the road. I don’t know if the Lighthouse would work as well if it wasn’t as close to Trinity College.”

As the only new face among TCD’s new Senators, it mean that McCarthy is essentially taking the seat that had been held by David Norris for 36 years before he retired. 

Norris, now 80, retired last year and became the longest serving Senator in the history of the State. He has spoken publicly about receiving cancer treatment in recent years. 

“What David Norris was, he was a trailblazer,” McCarthy says 

“Remember when he was dealing with the LGBT thing, there was no LGBT thing. Homosexuality was illegal, the guy could have been sent to jail. He blazed the trail, and so that’s why to sort of inherit his seat is fascinating, and it’s a privilege, and it’s not one to be taken lightly.”

“While his shoes are certainly big ones to fill, I will strive to uphold the same spirit of service he embodied. 

McCarthy won the final seat in the TCD constituency after a full recount was requested by Green Party candidate Hazel Chu, who missed out.  

He says he felt he was the underdog when the vote came down to a recount but that he extended his lead over Chu after it was completed.