Eoghan Dalton reports from Waterford

SINN FÉIN LEADER Mary Lou McDonald has backed her integration spokesperson Claire Kerrane in a controversy over the Roscommon-Galway TD’s call to see deportation considered for any immigrant who commits a crime.

McDonald said that Kerrane’s view was “common sense”, but differed with her party’s integration spokesperson and said that it should only be considered for a “serious violent offence” and “not for misdemeanors or petty crime”.

She also maintained that the party is “absolutely not” losing support from more progressive voters because of its immigration stance.

Yesterday, Kerrane told The Journal that deportation for “any” immigrant who commits a crime “should be on the table” but added that she’s “not pushing for it to become party policy”.

Kerrane added later that she was not trying to “to conflate people coming to Ireland and crime” and that there is “no link” between the two.

But McDonald today said that she broadly supports Kerrane’s view on the party’s first proper day of the election campaign in Dungarvan, Co Waterford where Sinn Féin is seeking two seats.

“What Claire said is just a matter of plain common sense. It’s also a matter already provider for in Irish law where somebody is convicted of a serious violent offense, there is the option to return that person to their home state or to their country of origin.

“That to me just makes sense. This to me is about community safety, this is about where a crime is committed there is a sanction or penalty for it just as if an Irish person in Australia was to commit a serious offence they’d be sent packing and rightly so.

Under current law, if the crime is serious or a violent crime, the person may be removed to their home Member State or deported to their country of origin. If a person has resided in Ireland for more than 10 years or is under the age of 18, a removal order can only be made on grounds of public security.

Kerrane said yesterday it was it was not party policy to look for for the measure and that it was only her personal view. She also said she was unsure how far she would apply the deportation measure in terms of the range of crimes committed.

Asked today whether the party’s harder stance on immigration may also damage it with voters it picked up at recent general elections, McDonald said that was “absolutely not” the case, before pointing to the role of immigrant workers in healthcare.

“Our health service wouldn’t function but for people coming to Ireland, making this place home and running our hospitals and the ancillary health services,” she said.

“It’s not about that, the issue here is where a serious crime is committed – what is the sanction? That is the issue.”

McDondald added that towns such as Dungarvan were part of what make Ireland a “welcoming country” and that “we need to do everything to ensure it remains that way”.