[Opinion]I would never call Councillor Long a Traitor
“I would rather be called a racist than a traitor to my country.” said Fine Gael councillor Jim Long. Well I won’t call him a traitor then, but I do feel betrayed by him.
He is one of my elected representatives on Limerick City Council. He is supposed to speak for me. When a German television crew interviewed him recently he suggested that we might have to ask migrant workers to leave the country. Common sense should tell you that if you are going to say that to a foreign journalist, you can be as sure as New Year’s comes after Christmas, that they are going to run with it.
He looked bad, and as a representative of me, he made me, and my city look bad. This is why I feel betrayed. He was elected on the promise of improving our city, and he made a holy show of it.
Given history, I am highly dissappointed that, apart from a few words following his outburst against immigrant workers in January, neither his party colleagues in any of the councils, or Fine Gael headquarters, have chastised or reprimanded this man.
This week, a study by the Economic and Social Research Institute showed that job applicants with a foreign looking name were less likely to get a job interview than someone with an Irish name. While there might be some unscrupulous employers out there willing to exploit foreign nationals who are unaware of their rights as employees, the ESRI report shows Long’s claim that migrant workers are putting Irish people out of work to be buncum.
If the Fine Gael Party really want to shake off the old “blueshirt” moniker which has stuck to them since the days of Eoghan O’Duffy, then they need to be seen to be acting on this man’s repulsive behaviour. Kick him out of Fine Gael, and do it now!