A DUBLIN councillor has told an anti-immigration rally in the city that Ireland 'is full'.
Gavin Pepper, who represents Ballymun-Finglas, was speaking outside the GPO on Saturday during the event billed as the National Rally for Ireland.
The large crowd also heard from fellow independent Dublin City Councillor Malachy Steenson, who said that Irish governments need to 'look after our people'.
Saturday's march set off from the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm and was led by a lone piper, while attendees held signs reading 'No to EU Migration Pact', 'Irish Lives Matter' and 'Save the nation! Remigration!'.
The rally made its way to the GPO (Image: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie)After marching along O'Connell Street to the GPO, Cllr Pepper told the assembled crowd 'our country is full' before criticising TD Jim O'Callaghan.
The Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration last week confirmed that a charter operation had deported 42 people to South Africa at a cost of €735,000.
"We have enough sex offenders and drug dealers and criminals in Ireland — we don't need any from the Third World," he said.
"Jim O'Callaghan, the other week you sent home a 747 with 42 people on it.
"They're rookie numbers, you need to get the numbers up and deport the whole lot of them."
'We will look after our people'
Mr O'Callaghan revealed in the Dáil recently that asylum applications are in fact in decline, with the 13,146 applications received in 2025 down a third from 18,553 the previous year.
The figure for 2025 is the lowest of the last four years, although is notably higher than the 2,647 applications received in 2021.
Meanwhile, figures published last August show that in the 12 months to April 2025, there were 125,300 immigrants to Ireland, down 16 per cent from the same period in 2024.
Of those, 31,500 were returning Irish citizens, 25,300 were other EU citizens, and 4,900 were British citizens, with the remaining 63,600 being citizens of other countries.
Emigration from Ireland was also down on the previous year, making for a positive net migration figure of 59,700 in the year to April 2025, compared with 79,300 in the previous year.
People in attendance at Saturday's anti-immigration rally (Image: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie)Also speaking at Saturday’s rally, Cllr Steenson accused the government of letting down 'the people that built this country'.
"We will ensure that if you go out to work that you get the benefit of that work, that you have a low-tax economy with good services," he said.
"So, when you go to hospital, you'll be treated when you need to be treated, not in four or five years.
"When your children take sick that they will get a world-class hospital and world-class treatment when they need it, not when we build a hospital that takes 20 years and billions to do.
"We'll have good quality roads, we'll have good quality housing, we will look after our people — the people that have been in this country for generations, the people that built this country."
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