Simon Harris’s recent claim that “our migration numbers are too high” drew uniform condemnation from left-wing parties in the Dáil.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik called it “an outrageous dogwhistle comment”. Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne said Harris was “dogwhistling to the far right”, while Paul Murphy of People Before Profit–Solidarity told the Tánaiste he was trying “to throw out your dogwhistles and not be challenged on it”.

However you characterise Harris’s comments – and many will characterise them negatively as ill-informed or poorly-argued – he certainly wasn’t dogwhistling. At least not in any meaningful sense.

A political dogwhistle “is classically defined as a message with a hidden meaning or subtext that is intended to be noticed by some listeners without attracting the attention of others”, British linguist Deborah Cameron points out.

There was nothing hidden in Harris’s statement. And it seems unlikely he was secretly trying to curry favour with the far right, given the sort of abuse he constantly receives from that quarter.

The point may seem trivial but, in a new book published this week, The Rise of........

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