“The kids were coming down for breakfast when these five men wearing cargo pants, big jackets arrived. They came into the third floor, stood in front of the bedroom door, took the three kids back in and told them to pack up. We heard them say: ‘You are going to be deported.’ As soon as the other children heard then they were all crying. It was such a horrific scene.”

This was how a resident in an IPAS centre in West Dublin described the scenes when families were deported last week and sent back to Nigeria.

“This is not a pleasant part of my job,” Jim O’Callaghan said on RTE. On X he said, “Another deportation flight left Dublin last night and landed safely this morning in Lagos, Nigeria. There were 35 people on board who had received but had not complied with Deportation Orders.”

On Free State today, Dion and Joe asked who these messages are aimed at? What is Ireland doing to combat the fantasies being spun by people like Conor McGregor about a lost Ireland that never existed?

Is appealing to those with concerns about immigration necessary to head off the far right or is this world without compassion and empathy Ireland’s dystopian future?

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