Dr Matt Treacy – Gript –
Wexford Sinn Féin TD Johnny Mythen has become the latest of that party’s representatives to become the target of the Woke.
His crime? Well, did he not have the temerity to ask the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar yesterday how many of the new jobs to be created by an offshore wind factory will go to Irish people.
The company in question, XELLZ has acquired 300,000msq of land adjacent to the Europort at Rosslare Harbour which was announced last July as part of the creation of a planned Free Zone that will facilitate the importation of commodities from outside the EU. Curiously, there was no mention of local jobs in any of this.
Mythen as a local TD is perfectly entitled to ask such a question – especially given that Wexford, for all of its importance as the location of one of the key entrepots to Ireland, has been massively impacted by unemployment even during better years.
Of course the response to his innocuous question was predictable. Éoin O’Malley of the Sunday Indpendent took to Twitter to mock Mythen and accuse him of being a “nativist populist” who should perhaps “go home to England and leave Ireland to true Gaels like me.” Oh, and take “half of Wexford with him.”
Indeed. Barely concealed contempt is what that is. Par for the course for people who regard the country and its people as a depreciating item in some balance sheet whereby pro corporate hacks get to have a few Euro in the bank account.
Some of the responses were interesting. One suggested that perhaps Mythen’s query was exactly the sort of one that might be put by any political representative “if you actually give a stuff about your own country and it’s people’s livelihoods and ventures. But of course that’s not fashionable anymore.”
It would be surprising, in fact, if a left wing political party or a trade union in the Netherlands where XELLZ are based, would not raise similar concerns were an Irish company to announce a similar project in one of its ports, with no reference to local suppliers or jobs. But to ask such a thing these days in this country is to invite ludicrous comparison to “other national socialist parites?”
This is the sort of discourse we have now. On another thread, someone self-righteously proclaimed that Mythen and those supporting him are probably a bit dim to realise that we are “now in the EU” and so, like, it doesn’t matter who gets any job or contract anywhere. Unless you want to be, like, a Nazi or something.
There’s an important question here which is rarely asked, and almost never answered. It’s no secret that a great many multinationals use Ireland as a base so they can get away with paying a fraction of what they’d otherwise pay in taxes, and, in return we get jobs, or so the spin goes. But how many of those jobs are filled by Irish people? Are many of them – especially the more senior jobs – actually filled by the high-fliers brought in to make up a significant proportion of the workforce for said corporations and who are pricing ordinary Dubs out of the city in terms of city housing?
As for the opprobrium being heaped upon Sinn Féin, or at least one of its TDs who puts his constituents ahead of virtue signalling or silence on such matters, let us leave the last word to another contributor to O’Malley’s page. Hopefully, more of the enragé brats will now decamp.
