By D Collins
In the heart of the Dáil chamber, Tánaiste Micheál Martin once blurted out the now-infamous rhetorical shrug: “What is vetting anyway?” What seemed like a throwaway line during a heated debate has aged like milk especially in light of recent revelations surrounding an elaborate criminal network operated by Stelian Ciuciu, a stateless man who turned Dublin into a brothel hub under the noses of Irish authorities.
This wasn’t a case of desperate survival or cultural misunderstanding. This was calculated, criminal enterprise operating in broad daylight, renting eight residential properties, falsifying documents, laundering over €320,000 in dirty cash, and coordinating a 450 member online prostitution ring. And still, Micheál Martin had the gall to ask, “What is vetting anyway?”
A State of Denial
Ireland’s political class has long treated immigration controls, background checks, and residency assessments as taboo topics. Raise concerns, and you’re branded xenophobic. Ask about criminal history, and you’re silenced. But Stelian Ciuciu is not an outlier he’s a symptom of systemic failure.
Ciuciu entered Ireland under the cloak of statelessness, which offered him a legal grey zone with minimal oversight. Despite having no verifiable national identity, he leased multiple properties using fake Romanian IDs, sham employer references, and a cooperative “partner” who vanished once the heat turned up. He didn’t just slip through the cracks he walked right in through the front door.
And Ireland let him.
A Criminal Paradise
What this case reveals is something far more troubling than one man’s greed. It shows that Ireland has become fertile ground for transnational criminal operations and our leaders are asleep at the wheel.
Gardaí are still uncovering the true scale of Ciuciu’s earnings and the full extent of his network. But this much is clear: he operated with impunity. The banks accepted hundreds of thousands in unexplained cash. Landlords rented properties without background checks. And the Department of Justice, blinded by bureaucracy and political correctness, failed to ask the most basic question:
Who is this man?
If one criminal can set up an underground brothel empire so easily, what else is festering beneath the surface?
Political Paralysis
Micheál Martin’s casual dismissal of vetting isn’t just tone deaf it’s dangerous. His outburst is emblematic of a wider political paralysis where ideology trumps responsibility. The reflexive defence of open borders and the romanticised narrative of all migrants as victims has left Ireland wide open to manipulation by cartels, pimps, smugglers, and scammers.
The result?
Renters priced out as brothels drive up urban demand
Women trafficked and exploited
Cash based crime rings thriving
Bank systems abused without alarm
Law-abiding immigrants stigmatised by association
This isn’t immigration. It’s infiltration. And it’s being enabled by a government that refuses to see the difference.
Time to Wake Up
Every Irish citizen deserves to live in a country where criminality is investigated, not imported. Where identity matters. Where background checks are standard, not optional. Where politicians don’t mock the very tools that protect national integrity.
If we continue down this road where questions are forbidden and enforcement is “racist” then cases like Ciuciu’s will not be rare. They’ll be routine.
Ireland must reclaim its sovereignty, demand accountability, and confront organised crime with courage not cowardice. Because if Micheál Martin doesn’t know what vetting is, then maybe he shouldn’t be anywhere near the wheel.