\n Fianna F\u00e1il’s presidential candidate Jim Gavin has accepted that the State faces a specific \u201cchallenge\u201d in integrating people who migrate here.\n <\/p>\n
\n Mr Gavin has said there must be a \u201cfair\u201d and \u201crobust\u201d process in place for immigration into Ireland, but that policy on immigration is set by Government rather than the president of the country.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe President can only shine a spotlight on the challenges of integration within society,\u201d Mr Gavin said, speaking to the Irish Examiner at the Ploughing Championships in Offaly.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI felt this myself when I\u2019ve been the chair of the North East Inner City [taskforce] for the last few years. The population there is a historic part of Ireland … and yet it feels that there is a challenge that immigration poses to society.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen this upfront and I\u2019ve been working the people of the North East Inner City to meet that challenge of integration.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Mr Gavin said the best thing political leaders can do is to \u201clisten\u201d to people\u2019s views on immigration.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe best thing the President can do is listen to the people in the cities and villages and rural Ireland about how that immigration is happening and how we can manage that and integrate people into society.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Mr Gavin said immigration has been \u201cpart of the island of Ireland for centuries\u201d.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cFor me, the immigrant community provide so much for our society. I think we all have experience in hospitals or nursing homes, the great work immigrants do.”\n <\/p>\n
\n The former GAA manager secured the Fianna F\u00e1il nomination last week, beating Cork MEP Billy Kelleher in an internal party contest.\n <\/p>\n
\n Questioned on his thoughts about the Irish tricolour being used by some individuals to mark out areas where migrants aren\u2019t welcome, Mr Gavin said he did not believe it should be used \u201cfor extremes\u201d.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe flag is very precious to me, I\u2019m very sensitive on its use,\u201d Mr Gavin said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m not a believer in extremes, either to the left or to the right. The primary role of Uachtarain na h\u00c9ireann is to protect our constitution. It\u2019s very clear on our sovereignty, on our democracy, on our independence.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe share the island with everybody from whatever one\u2019s background is and the flag speaks to that.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe centre of our flag is the white symbol of peace. The flag is a symbol of Ireland and a symbol of our Constitution.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Meanwhile, a Fine Gael councillor in Offaly has insisted the council will not facilitate any candidate when the council meets next week to decide whether or not to nominate for the presidency.\n <\/p>\n
\n Offaly is a key target council for Independent Gareth Sheridan, who needs the backing of two more local authorities.\n <\/p>\n
\n Neil Feighery said it would depend on Fianna F\u00e1il councillors as to whether or not they decide to block a candidate, describing them as the \u201ckingmakers\u201d.\n <\/p>\n
\n He added that all five Fine Gael councillors would block the nomination of a candidate.\n <\/p>\n
\n It comes as a Fine Gael councillor in Tipperary, Mary Hanna Hourigan, backed Mr Sheridan in a vote on Tuesday, which was crucial in getting him over the line.<\/p>\n
Agriculture Minister Martin Heydon said any decision to sanction Ms Hanna Hourigan would be made by the Fine Gael executive council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il’s presidential candidate Jim Gavin has accepted that the State faces a specific \u201cchallenge\u201d in integrating people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39988,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-70047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-national-ploughing-championships","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-presidential-election","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}