*Kevin Hassett (IND). Photograph: John Mangan
ONE OF six Independent candidates on the ballot paper, Kevin Hassett (IND) has said the Government have “a Pandora’s box which they are unable to control” regarding immigration.
A father of two, the Kilkee native is on a ballot paper for the second time in five months after contesting the elections in the Kilrush local electoral area where he polled 448 first preference votes and was the third candidate eliminated in a field of thirteen.
Development of the infrastructure in West Clare has been underlined as a key focus for Kevin in his campaign. “I’d love to see West Clare take off between Moneypoint, we’re in bad need of housing back here especially the likes of Kilkee, we’ve other areas, we’ve wastewater treatment and so many areas to address, the N68, the N67, I’ve addressed how we’re only getting one percent of a €500m budget, I’ve been on about it since the local elections, it’s the same thing, the lack of funding not coming into Clare and definitely not coming into West Clare, I want to represent every town, North Clare, Ennistymon, these all count, we need to get Moneypoint up and going”.
Moneypoint’s Green Atlantic plans serve as “our last chance at bringing something worthwhile to West Clare,” he maintained.
Forecasts of 600 staff for this project heightens the need for the locality to be prepared with a housing stack in order to reap the benefits in Kilrush. “We need the accommodation again in Kilrush whether it be AirBnB or start looking at a hotel, there will be a lot people that we need to accommodate on a short term basis, any of these people at the end of a hard day’s work they like to find some sort of refinement, I mean, it’s not good enough to be just running to a room of a house, they like a hot meal and so on and so forth, relax after putting down their das, and there will be a lot of professionals coming to Kilrush. It is not fair to be driving them all the way to North Clare, with the lack of accommodation again there is no hotels left in this area at this stage”.
Hassett continued, “The DMAPS is a big thing at the moment and the conversion to oil, from our side of it we need a roadmap for our development here, like, we have to start addressing the road to Kilrush and how it’s going to be done, there doesn’t seem to be any initiative at the moment from the Council or any other body to address any of these concerns,
In June, he ran under the Independent Ireland banner, on his reasons for flying completely independent this time round, the farmer explained, “I suppose we had our little differences, you know, I suppose I’m a bit stronger on immigration where I want to see it going than, you know, I want to see more control in our borders”.
He said, “There’s a red carpet laid out in Mount Street, we’re talking about illegal economic migrants moving freely through the UK, through the north and entering Ireland, Helen McEntee has discussed this 80% I believe it is 90% at this stage, we have to address why they are doing that”.
Control of the Irish borders has been listed as one of his election commitments. “The problem I have is we have a housing crisis, it is just exasperating the problem,” he said. “We just can’t accept them. Here in Kilrush with the last IPAS house which came in here, most of them are Nigerian, we’re talking about North Africa which has the most of a 600 million population, Ireland cannot address a problem of 600 million”.
When asked if persons should be allowed entry into Ireland if fleeing war-torn countries, Kevin replied, “In a population of 600 million to be realistic you’re going to have feuds. We can only accept people through the proper channels. Everything else is illegal”. He claimed the Department of Justice are facilitating “easy entry with everything provided, three meals a day, free accommodation”. He said, “If you come here and contribute to society, pay your taxes, coming here as a freeloader, this is not the way our immigration worked out of Ireland”.
Running for the Dáil had been his focus even when contesting the local elections, he confirmed, “I had always intended to contest it”. He continued, “My commitments are the same. I still believe we have to address what happened last June, entering into migration pact, I don’t agree with it, we have opened a Pandora’s box that this Government are not able to control. We went through the referendum earlier on in the year, and, you know, the people were quite upset taking mother out of our constitution, I think they got their answer”. Both the Migration Pact and Hate Speech Bill should have gone to Refernda, he believed.
On what he has done to build his vote since June, Hassett said, “I’ve been active in the immigration here locally and I’ve met senior management with the ESB”. This meeting with the ESB occurred as part of an open day at their Moneypoint site. On his following of 10,500 on TikTok, he remarked, “I believe I’m onto something”.
Touching on his involvement in the protests to the housing of 27 male asylum seekers at The Central B&B in Kilrush, he stated, “We were not protesting. We met with the Department of Integration, I suppose, and I suppose the biggest problem was there is no you cannot object to any part of this process. The initial application of the building concerns the building directly, there’s no neighbours, there’s no schools, there’s nothing taken into account, and it’s take as we give you, there is no compromise. We had we had a town meeting here of a Tuesday night, Cathal (Crowe), Timmy (Dooley), Rita (McInerney) and Ian (Lynch) attended, I think people would have people would have accepted like, if there was, they would have been happier if there was couples coming and I felt maybe they would have integrated better”.
A group of locals meeting with the Department of Integration was labelled as “absolutely useless” by Hassett. “The problem we have is this is not this is not just the end of it, like, I mean, there was 400 a week coming in, like, and, you know, it’s very fine to say this that anyone wishes to offer up accommodation because it’s too lucrative so it’s going to be taken on, we can see Roderic O’Gorman is looking for accommodation”.
He said, “I believe I’m experienced enough, I’ve seen enough of life, we’ve reared our children. I’m experienced in building and farming, I have drive, I have initiative and I’m a very positive person”.
West Clare needs to elect a TD, he stressed. On why it should be him and not Cllr Rita McInerney (FF) or Dr Tom Nolan (FG), he outlined, “A vote for them is a vote for exactly what I’m talking about and that is a problem, we’ve changed Ireland. They have to fall back into line, they can make all the promises they want. In 2009, Fianna Fáil took away the hospital, it is fifteen years ago, it doesn’t matter who they have they won’t change. The money was there in the budget, the money should’ve been set aside for the hospital in Ennis, you know I’m passionate about it, I believe there’s no other answer only a new hospital, we’re looking to service some of Galway, some of Limerick in overflows, we need to service obviously Clare, I don’t believe the site in Ennis is big enough, it can’t be developed, this is why we need to look at a greenfleld site, we need scale, we need a hospital that is going to encourage young people, we’re building something for the next hundred years, we need modern facilities to encourage workers in, we need to start encouraging our own people back to stay, to get married, live locally, build houses locally and support our local economy, the West of Ireland is dying, from Donegal down to Kerry, what has happened in the last two years, the whole thing has changed, our tourism industry is on its knees”.
He continued, “I will ask the hard questions, and I will get results”. When asked if he could be described as an inclusive representative to all, he replied, “We are inclusive as in even talking about immigration, we had 3,000 odd people coming here with years, there was never a problem, we never said nothing, we never had a problem, it was sustainable levels”.
