The ICP has not applied for political party status, although it is registered as a "Third Party" by the Standards in Public Office Commission Its website describes it as follows:
The aim of the organisation is to address the phenomenon of immigration to Ireland and to lobby Government for a tight immigration policy.
The organisation aims at a very rigorous policy in relation to asylum-seekers, refugees, and a determined response to all illegal immigration.
ICP's main activities are writing letters to newspapers, issuing press releases, and maintaining a website. It has also issued leaflets and occasionally held small protests and pickets. It has an Executive Committee elected by the membership at its AGM. It claims to be funded by membership fees and private donations. Its leaders have described it as a single-issue group. Judith Pryor interprets its policy as favouring white immigrants over non-whites. ICP denies being racist. ICP has no policy on Irish illegal immigration to the United States, an issue sometimes linked with immigration to Ireland. ICP candidate Ted Neville had himself spent time illegally in the United States.
History
ICP's most prominent member is Áine Ní Chonaill, whose official title is public relations officer. A schoolteacher from Clonakilty, she stood in Cork South-West in the 1997 general election as an independent on an anti-immigration platform, winning 0.84% of the first-preference vote. The election came early in the Celtic Tigereconomic boom and an increase in asylum seekers from Eastern Europe and further afield. ICP was founded at a meeting organised by Ní Chonaill in Ennis on 13 January 1998. The meeting was disrupted by anti-racism activists, and the venues of later ICP conferences was not disclosed in advance. Harry McGee in 2003 described Irish media coverage of ICP as disproportionate to its small size and generally hostile to its views. ICP has refused to tell the media or Oireachtas how many members it has. In 2003 Ní Chonaill along with then-chairman John Oakes attended a discussion on immigration at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights. Ní Chonaill felt that a January 2003 Supreme Court decision, which permitted deportation of illegal immigrants with Irish-born children, did not go far enough. ICP supported the successful 2004 referendum which restricted citizenship by birth, a practice ICP said encouraged birth tourism by pregnant illegal immigrants. Ní Chonaill and Ted Neville of ICP spoke at the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality on 1 April 2015. Anne Ferris was made to withdraw a comment comparing ICP's views to Auschwitz.
