According to Justice Minister Helen McEntee, there is “no evidence” linking rising crime rates to greater immigration, reports Newstalk.
Ms. McEntee stated that there is a “perception” that “people are coming in with criminal backgrounds that we don’t know about” during her appearance on The Anton Savage Show today.
“There are simply no facts to back that up,” she said. “None whatsoever. In fact, if you look at if you look at statistics, it is under-representative in terms of the population of people who are not born in this country,” reports Newstalk.
“There is certainly not an increase under certainly not a correlation between the increasing numbers that we’ve seen in the last two years and an increase in crime,” reports Newstalk.
Background checks are a part of the application procedure for foreign protection, according to Ms. McEntee, and those who are ineligible—including criminals—are “removed.”
“We have to move away from this perception that because somebody comes here seeking protection that we’re automatically going to assume the worst. This could be anybody’s brother, anybody’s family that’s fleeing war, that fleeing persecution,” she said, reports Newstalk.
Ms. McEntee also spoke about Cuan, a recently established organisation whose mission is to address and lessen gender-based, sexual, and domestic abuse.
The new agency would do “so much more,” according to the minister of justice, than only give money to nonprofits and charitable organisations.
“It will look at, ‘Where are the gaps? Where do we need to expand services? Where do we need more funding? And how do we work with the sector to do that?’. We have some levels of research, to really get a clearer picture of what’s going on. We need to make sure that we understand the facts and to date, the facts are absolutely frightening,” reports Newstalk.
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