DUBLIN CENTRAL CANDIDATE Clare Daly has refuted a claim that she declared single male asylum seekers a threat to locals in the north Dublin suburb of East Wall.

The Independents4Change candidate also suggested that the Government had delibrately “botched” the housing of asylum seekers in a former ESB building in the suburb in late 2022, which sparked a wave of protests.

During an appearance on RTÉ’s Drivetime programme last week, Daly took aim at the Government in a reference to the housing of asylum seekers in East Wall.

“What happened in East Wall, I mean, an office complex and an IPAS centre run by an event management company is just absolutely the wrong way to go,” Daly said.

She added: “Initially, there was very little information for the community. They brought in a lot of single males, even though families were always intended to be there. That’s not the right way to go.”

The use of the term ‘single males’ has previously been criticised as misrepresenting the threat that asylum seekers pose to communities where they are being housed.

Last year, Secretary General of the Integration Department, Kevin McCarthy, who told an Oireachtas committee that a narrative has “gotten out there” that single males present a threat to communities, despite no evidence to support this.

“These people do not present a threat to communities. I think there is an onus on all of us to challenge that narrative,” he said.

In the aftermath of her comments, Daly was also criticised by People Before Profit candidate for Dublin Fingal East, Ollie Power.

“Extremely disturbing – Clare Daly suggests presencee of ‘single males’ in East Wall is a threat to locals,” he wrote on X.

“That part of Dublin has been left to ruin by Irish ruling class for decades – long before immigration – when Irish ‘single men’ were banished as emigrants themselves.”

Speaking at a canvassing event in Dublin Central today, Daly responded to Power’s remarks and told The Journal: “That was outrageously inaccurate”.

“I am probably the best known European activist on the issue of asylum and immigration. I’m actually fronting progressive internationals,” she said.

“I’ve been to Greece with asylum seekers. I have fostered single males. That’s absolutely disgraceful.

“I think for people who are supposedly on the left to target me for that for maybe a few votes or something, I find it really sad. I really do.”

Daly also took aim at the current Government’s handling of the housing allocation of asylum seekers throughout the country, describing it as a “diversionary tactic” to distract from the housing crisis.

She said: “I was simply recounting the botched job, probably deliberately, by our government in relation to what they did in East Wall, which was a recipe for racism.”

“I’m simply recounting factually that they had dumped people into an office block run by an event management company.”

She was also asked about how her support for local community vetoes on the accommodation of single male asylum seekers in an area could co-exist with her documented record of backing the intake of refugees.

She responded: “I think communities have to be brought on in every regard. It’s not accidental that the site’s chosen.

“That’s why [the Government] chose neglected rural communities, and more working-class areas because they thought ‘so what’.

“If you do consultation properly, there is no requirement for a veto. I think it’s a false argument.”