The far-right are using peoples' genuine fears created by crises in housing and health to recruit support for their extreme views.

A counter-extremism expert is warning that political groups are capitalising on real problems to stir up anti-immigration sentiment in Ireland.

This week, multiple anti-refugee and asylum seeker protests were held across Ireland, in Dublin, Cork and Kildare.

'They tap into very real concerns and pull people into espousing blatant anti-migrant rhetoric.'

Research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Aoife Gallagher, warns that the far-right are becoming more sophisticated.

"Over the past number of years, they have gotten very good at being able to tap into very real concerns that people have about immigration", she told Newstalk.

"Even outside of immigration, you see them now kind of tapping into genuine concerns that people have about the housing emergency and the state of the healthcare system.

"What they're able to do is essentially tap into the very real concerns and pull [people] into kind of espousing blatant anti-migrant rhetoric at the same time."

Not a new problem

This is not a new movement, Ms Gallagher says, having been years in the making.

"People might remember the protests against direct provision centres in places like Oughterard in Galway and Moville in Donegal ... this is kind of a continuation of them.

"What we're seeing, especially in an online context, and on the ground, is that the kind of narrative is becoming a lot more extreme than what we saw a few years ago."

'A genuine sense of fear'

Early this week, Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon said that some in his constituency have “a genuine sense of fear” about new people moving into their neighbourhood, but added that the driving force behind the protests were out of touch.

“Without question, there are groups here who are seeking to exploit, manipulate and spread fear,” he continued.

“They’re the usual people, we’ve seen them involved in every anti-protest for the last 15 years and they’ve never cottoned on - some failed local election candidates who’ve never got any grasp in the constituency.

“And they’re seeing this issue as a way of making themselves relevant again.”

Main image shows a crowd of people with an Irish Tricolour gather outside the former ESB offices on East Wall Road in Dublin to protests against the housing of refugees in the building. Picture by: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie