Latest figures on immigration from CSO

ArthurDent

The latest CSO figures make interesting reading
http://www.cso.ie/publications/demog/popmig.pdf


Immigration 12 months to April 2004 - 50,100
Emmigration - 18,500

30% nationals from countries other than EU USA
34% returning Irish nationals
9% Chinese
8% Central and Eastern Europe

my maths makes it approx 15,000 immigrants from non EU / USA - so why did we need all the palaver of the citizenship referendum?

daveirl

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arcadegame2004

ArthurDent wrote:

The latest CSO figures make interesting reading
http://www.cso.ie/publications/demog/popmig.pdf


Immigration 12 months to April 2004 - 50,100
Emmigration - 18,500

30% nationals from countries other than EU USA
34% returning Irish nationals
9% Chinese
8% Central and Eastern Europe

my maths makes it approx 15,000 immigrants from non EU / USA - so why did we need all the palaver of the citizenship referendum?

Doesn't take account of the 24,000 Eastern Europeans from the new EU states that came here in the 3 months since we joined the EU. Also, 30+34+9+8 doesn't add up to 100.

Restrictions should be imposed similar to those imposed by the rest of the EU (other than the UK) if the likely 100,000 a year immigration rate from the new EU member states continues. We are entitled to be a majority in our own country and that will not be possible in 30 years time at the current rate of things. I hope that the rate will slow down after the other EU states lift their restrictions by 2011.

mike65

Yadda yadda yadda.... :rolleyes:

Mike.

Victor

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Doesn't take account of the 24,000 Eastern Europeans from the new EU states that came here in the 3 months since we joined the EU. .... Restrictions should be imposed similar to those imposed by the rest of the EU (other than the UK) if the likely 100,000 a year immigration rate from the new EU member states continues.

Now you have been told that those figures are misleading in a previous thread. I would be grateful if you didn't continue the scaremongering.

ionapaul

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Not sure what you mean - that it is necessary to stop immigration?

ArthurDent

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Doesn't take account of the 24,000 Eastern Europeans from the new EU states that came here in the 3 months since we joined the EU. Also, 30+34+9+8 doesn't add up to 100.

Restrictions should be imposed similar to those imposed by the rest of the EU (other than the UK) if the likely 100,000 a year immigration rate from the new EU member states continues. We are entitled to be a majority in our own country and that will not be possible in 30 years time at the current rate of things. I hope that the rate will slow down after the other EU states lift their restrictions by 2011.

That's 24,000 (if that is the true figure) of EU citizens perfectly entitled to be here

and sure 30 +34+ 9 +8 is not equal to 100

but
30% non-EU/USA
34% returning Irish and
36 % EU/USA is 100%

See table 7 of the CSO document for more details
http://www.cso.ie/publications/demog/popmig.pdf

Including the following ...
7100 women immigrants from non-EU (15 states at the time of this data) / non-USA. That's all - just 7,100 women not exactly the numbers that were discusssed pre referendum.

Oh and what law are you quoting that gives us an entitlement to be "a majority in our own country"?

MrPudding

Victor wrote:

Now you have been told that those figures are misleading in a previous thread. I would be grateful if you didn't continue the scaremongering.

Don't waste your breath. He repeatedly posst debunked figures again and again. He also posts comments as facts and then refuses to back them up with facts. His "sole reason for being pregnant post" is a prime example.

MrP

daveirl

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AngelofFire

Doesn't take account of the 24,000 Eastern Europeans from the new EU states that came here in the 3 months since we joined the EU.

Also does not take into account the high percentage of these people working and making a postivie contribution to the economy, they dont all come here to claim welfare.

We are entitled to be a majority in our own country and that will not be possible in 30 years time at the current rate of things.

That argument is as plausible as the those foreigners are takin our jobs and our women argument,dont try and use it to bear collective condemnation on all immigrants particularily the ones who come here and work hard.

The English have not become a minority in their own country despite the large scale influx of African,Indian,Irish and carribean migrants since the 1960s. The country can adapt to its new found make up, look at all the coloured english footballers singing god save the queen at last weeks england vs austria match,Half of the population of Birmingham City are coloured or ethnic and they city has never been more english. Foreigners did not run down britain and contrary to what you believe they will not run down ireland.

Victor

arcadegame2004 heres something to make your racial purity fuse blow - them Europeans have been having sex with each other for eons. http://www.friesian.com/francia.htm

Of course the figure of 50,000 overstates immigration - a third of them are Irish coming home and a proportion of those identifying themselves as as "UK" will be northerners. Further, for all the people coming here, quite a few are also leaving

UK	 					 5,900 	18%
EU13 (EU15 excluding Irish & UK)		10,600 	32%
USA						 1,800 	5%
Non-EU15 Europe, Asia, Africa, 
Latin America, Canada, Oceania	 6,383 	19%
Chinese	 			 4,509 	14%
Central / Eastern Europe	 4,008 	12%
Rest of World*					14,900 	45%
Total 						33,200 	100%

* including non-EU15 Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Canada, Oceania

mike65

AngelofFire wrote:

The English have not become a minority in their own country despite the large scale influx of African,Indian,Irish and carribean migrants since the 1960s. The country can adapt to its new found make up, look at all the coloured english footballers singing god save the queen at last weeks england vs austria match,Half of the population of Birmingham City are coloured or ethnic and they city has never been more english. Foreigners did not run down britain and contrary to what you believe they will not run down ireland.

Its worth noting that dispite all the immigration into the UK the Indian Subcontinent population is 2 million and the black population is about 1 million in a population of 60 million.

The ethnic Irish account for 5 million approx, send them all back home I say!

edit> found the figures

White – 53,074,000 (includes Irish, Polish, Italian etc).
Black Caribbean – 490,000
Black African – 376,000
Black other – 308,000
Indian – 930,000
Pakistani – 663,000
Bangladeshi –268,000
Chinese – 137,000
Other Asian – 209,000 (includes Vietnamese, Malaysian, Thai)
Other – 424,000 (people who did not think they fitted the above categories)

Mike.

arcadegame2004

Now you have been told that those figures are misleading in a previous thread. I would be grateful if you didn't continue the scaremongering.

How are they misleading?

At first, the American Indians had good relations with SOME of the European invaders. The rest is history.

The English have not become a minority in their own country despite the large scale influx of African,Indian,Irish and carribean migrants since the 1960s. The country can adapt to its new found make up, look at all the coloured english footballers singing god save the queen at last weeks england vs austria match,Half of the population of Birmingham City are coloured or ethnic and they city has never been more english. Foreigners did not run down britain and contrary to what you believe they will not run down ireland.
Today 20:30

Yes and the UK has 60 million people so it is hardly comparable to Ireland.

Racial harmony is desirable but people are very worried about becoming a minority in our historic homeland. We do not want to become the new "American Indians". Let each nation retain their nationhood, and not lose their identity.

Sparks

Racial harmony is desirable but people are very worried about becoming a minority in our historic homeland.

Do you actually believe that if you go back three or four generations that you won't discover that one of your direct ancestors was from outside our hallowed soil?

And I for one don't want to see "racial harmony", because the very phrase implies a social seperation on the grounds of race being treated as a basis for policy-making, which is such an incredibly unhealthy attitude that I don't even know where to properly begin when criticising it.

And if you're worried about that majority, consider the consequences of your policy being applied uniformly - the ethnic Irish from the UK alone would outnumber every man, woman and child living in the Republic at the moment by a majority of a million people.

therecklessone

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Racial harmony is desirable but people are very worried about becoming a minority in our historic homeland. We do not want to become the new "American Indians".

What utter nonsense.

Do you fear being slaughtered in your wigwam by merauding Muslims now? Are you afraid the Eastern Europeans will kill all the buffalo? Or should we beware smallpox-ridden blankets from Nigerians?

Stop scaremongering and start providing facts and figures. Either that or take your ass over to your intellectual fellow travellers at Stormfront.

BlitzKrieg

comparing the immigration to ireland to the american indians is stupid and unfounded!

-The people arriving in Ireland tend to work within our legal system and the international legal system.

-The European settlers in the America's ignored every belief, law and custom of the native americans.

-We have an established nationwide government

-obviously the native americans didnt.


I think its a tad too obvious the differences. It has been proven that the actions of the European settlers can occur in todays world but IT IS NOT HAPPENING HERE!

sliabh

No one else ran with this so I will.

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Restrictions should be imposed similar to those imposed by the rest of the EU (other than the UK) if the likely 100,000 a year immigration rate from the new EU member states continues. We are entitled to be a majority in our own country and that will not be possible in 30 years time at the current rate of things.

This is a prime example of abuse of statistics. Start with a snapshot of the current data and then project out. Asume that things will always remain the same (and work with a load of other really dodgy assumptions)

But the maths doesn't even stack up. Based on arcadegame2004's reasoning (dodgy assumption 1 - continued immigration at the current rate) in the next century we will get 35,000 x 100 = 3.5m immigrants from the rest of the world. Which is less than the current population (4m). To really scare monger lets add in the other 35,000 from the US and EU and assume that no more Irish will return (dodgy assumption 2), none of these immigrants leaves (dodgy assumption 3) and the indigenous population stops growing (dodgy assumption 4). It will still take over 50 years for the new arrivals to outnumber the "natives" (70,000 x 54 = 3.85m, assuming 5% of the current population is not Irish)

Another dodgy assumptions I left out were
5 - naturalisation of immigrants does not happen to increase the number of Irish (or are naturalised immigrants not "real" Irish people)

Consider the 30 year figure to be junk.

Mighty_Mouse

At first, the American Indians had good relations with SOME of the European invaders. The rest is history

This has to be the best quote ever posted on Boards in relation to immigration!! :rolleyes:

therecklessone

I wonder where this new-found concern for the plight of the Native American shown by AG2004 comes from?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=178446&highlight=referendum

the United States was a country built on immigration. No single ethnic-group constitutes an "American" ethnic-identity. this differs drastically from the nations of Europe...

You are also ignoring the obvious fact that the United States is a massive country and large-scale Irish migration in the past was not going to cause major problems for the US economy in terms of competition for jobs, etc. and in terms of the costs to the US welfare-state.

Conveniantly airbrushes the natives out of history.

Zombrex

arcadegame2004 wrote:

if the likely 100,000 a year immigration rate from the new EU member states continues.

I found a tenner on the ground yesterday. At this rate I will have €1,440 by the end of the year ... oh no wait, no I won't :rolleyes:

Arcade all you ever seem to do is find a small figure then multiply by something stupid to get a really large figure and then use that ridiculous figure as a scaremongering tactic. There are not 100,000 immigrates a year coming from the new EU states. That is just nonsense.

arcadegame2004 wrote:

We are entitled to be a majority in our own country and that will not be possible in 30 years time at the current rate of things.

The current rate of what??? You don't even have a current rate of anything

In 1901 there were 3.2 million people living in Ireland. In 2004 there are 4.04 million people living in Ireland. Never mind that in 1841 there were 6.1 million people living in Ireland. In England in 1901 there were 30 million and now their are just less that 60 million. The population of England has doubled in the last century and we have struggled to put on a 1/4 population increase. And we are still 2 million less than what we were in 1884. By the growth of other countries we should be over 12 millon. But we aren't we are at 4 million.

Ireland is the last country that has to worry about population increases.

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Racial harmony is desirable but people are very worried about becoming a minority in our historic homeland.

Define the group that you would classify as the "minority" in a situation like that. People who were born here? Oh wait you got rid of that. People who live here? No thats gone too. People who own FAI t-shirts :rolleyes:

You say you are not racist but then come out with statements like this. What is your classificatino for someone that would not belong in your true Irish minority or majority.

arcadegame2004

With all due respect to the above posteds disagreeing with me, it doesn't seem a coincidence that many of the hotbeds of international conflict are in ethnically-mixed areas like the Caucasus now, Lebannon in the 1980's, Bosnia in the recent past (and UN troop are al that's stopping the war starting there again), among other areas. I am not a zero-immigration person but we have to have limits.

Zombrex

arcadegame2004 wrote:

With all due respect to the above posteds disagreeing with me, it doesn't seem a coincidence that many of the hotbeds of international conflict are in ethnically-mixed areas like the Caucasus now, Lebannon in the 1980's, Bosnia in the recent past (and UN troop are al that's stopping the war starting there again), among other areas. I am not a zero-immigration person but we have to have limits.

Sigh :rolleyes:

The argument that having a diverse culture is bad because it causes racism and conflict is such a ridiculous possition it is amazing that it is still be used on Boards.ie

It is like the argument saying women shouldn't be allowed in the army because they distract the men.

The problem isn't the diversity, the problem is the racism, hate and bigotry.

Victor

sliabh wrote:

But the maths doesn't even stack up. Based on arcadegame2004's reasoning (dodgy assumption 1 - continued immigration at the current rate) in the next century we will get 35,000 x 100 = 3.5m immigrants from the rest of the world. Which is less than the current population (4m). To really scare monger lets add in the other 35,000 from the US and EU and assume that no more Irish will return (dodgy assumption 2)

Oh, it isn't 35,000+35,000, it's 33,200 total.

At first, the American Indians had good relations with SOME of the European invaders.

Would they be sexual relations?

daveirl

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sliabh

arcadegame2004 wrote:

With all due respect to the above posteds disagreeing with me, it doesn't seem a coincidence that many of the hotbeds of international conflict are in ethnically-mixed areas like the Caucasus now, Lebannon in the 1980's, Bosnia in the recent past (and UN troop are al that's stopping the war starting there again), among other areas. I am not a zero-immigration person but we have to have limits.

There are only 2 totally ethnically pure cultures on the planet (or there were until recently) the Inuit around the Arctic (eskimos to the traditionalists) and the Aborigines in Australia. Their limited contact and interaction with the outside world is why they have remained relatively undeveloped.

Whereas all the greatest cultures in history have grown up at the cross roads of civilizations, Babylon, Greece, Rome, etc. Indeed the first cities (and the first one ever discovered in Jordan) came about in the areas where the greatest amount of mixing occurred. Go away and read a book like "Guns, Germs and Steel" (by Jared Diamond) to see how through history progress has come from cultural interchage.

The road of cultural and racial purity is the road of stagnation.

Victor

I feel an identity crisis coming on.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-1247765,00.html

September 05, 2004
The Irish are not Celts, say experts
Jan Battles

THE long-held belief that Ireland’s population is descended from the Celts has been disproved by geneticists, who have concluded that they never invaded Ireland.

The research at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) into the origins of Ireland’s population found no substantial evidence of the Celts in Irish DNA, and concludes they never settled here en masse.

The study, part-funded by the National Millennium Committee, has just been published in The American Journal of Human Genetics. It was one of four projects funded by the government under the Genetic History of Ireland programme, which aimed to provide a definitive survey of the origins of the ancient peoples of Ireland.

Part of the project’s brief was to “discover whether there was a large incursion by Celtic people about 2,500 years ago” as was widely believed. After comparing a variety of genetic traits in Irish people with those of thousands of European and Near Eastern inhabitants, the scientists at TCD say there was not.

“Some people would go as far as saying there was total replacement of the population (of Ireland) 2,500 years ago,” said Brian McEvoy, one of the authors. “But if that happened we would definitely be more related to people in central Europe, because the Celts were supposed to have come from there. We’re just not seeing that. We’re seeing something earlier. Our legacy is the result of the first people to settle in Ireland around 9,000 years ago.”

About 15,000 years ago, ice covered Ireland, Britain and a lot of northern Europe so prehistoric man retreated back into Spain, Italy and Greece, which were still fairly temperate. When the ice started melting again around 12,000 years ago, people followed it northwards as areas became habitable again.

“The primary genetic legacy of Ireland seems to have come from people from Spain and Portugal after the last ice age,” said McEvoy. “They seem to have come up along the coast through western Europe and arrived in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It’s not due to something that happened 2,500 years ago with Celts. “We have a very old genetic legacy.”

While we may not owe our heritage to the Celts, we are still linked to other populations considered Celtic, such as Scotland and Wales. McEvoy said: “It seems to be more a cultural spread than actual people coming in wiping out and replacing everyone else.”

A PhD student in Trinity’s department of genetics, McEvoy will present the findings tomorrow at the Irish Society of Human Genetics annual meeting.

He and Dan Bradley of TCD took samples of mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the mother, from 200 volunteers around Ireland using cheek swabs. They also compiled a database of more than 8,500 individuals from around Europe and analysed them for similarities and matches in the sequences.

They found most of the Irish samples matched with those around Britain and the Pyrenees in Spain. There were some matches in Scandinavia and parts of northern Africa.

“Of the Celtic regions, by far the strongest correspondence is with Scotland,” said Bradley. “It corresponds exactly with language.” While that could be due to the Plantation of Ulster, Bradley said it was more likely due to something much older because the matches occur throughout the whole of Ireland and not just the north.

The geneticists produced a map of Europe with contours linking places that were genetically similar. One contour goes around the edge of the Atlantic, around Wales, Scotland, Ireland and includes Galicia in Spain and the Basque region.

“This isn’t consistent with the idea of a large invasion here around 500BC,” said Bradley. “You would expect some more affinity with central Europe if we owed the bulk of our ancestry to a movement from central Europe but we don’t.”

Some archeologists also doubt there was a Celtic invasion because few of their artifacts have been found in Ireland.

sovtek

daveirl wrote:

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HE he..yea and the last one had a bunch of white people in it.

arcadegame2004

Victor wrote:

I feel an identity crisis coming on.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-1247765,00.html

That does not mean we do not have an ethnic-identity. You post acknowledges that the dominant genetic trait among Irish people goes back 900 years to the first inhabitants of the island.

I stand by my opinion that the good of all Irish people requires strict controls on immigration so that costs to the Health-service, social-welfare system etc. do not explode out of all proportion, as well as to protect Irish jobs from too much cheap labour.

bonkey

arcadegame2004 wrote:

I stand by my opinion that the good of all Irish people requires strict controls on immigration so that costs to the Health-service, social-welfare system etc. do not explode out of all proportion, as well as to protect Irish jobs from too much cheap labour.

So give us some numbers, arcade.

How many is enough? How many per year, or how many total.

How long does someone - or a family line - have to live on the island before they can be considered Irish without marrying into an existing Irish family.

How should we treat the possibility of long-term residents seeking naturalisation? Should we limit their chances to become citizens? If so...how many should we allow.

When the government finally gets round to enacting this "ultra-urgent" constitutional change and putting the associated legal framework around it, how should they legislate for the cases of citizenship that you have platituded away in the past saying that it was "probably to be legislated for". How do we legislate for these, and still keep control of the numbers.

So come on...tell us how it should be done. Broad strokes are enough, but numbers are what matter. YOu keep talking about ensuring a majority...so does that mean that you want a line drawn somewhere around 40% "foreign blood" - that we should allow up to (say) 2 to 2.5 million of them in? Or should it be less? Cap at 1.5 mill? 1 million? 500 thousand?

Or is it jobs etc. you're worried about? So maybe it should only be, like, 10,000? Hey...in fact....while there are any unemployed in Ireland, we technically don't need any immigrants, as they'd be stealing our jobs. Maybe we should say, then, only as many as the job surplus at any given moment allows?

So come on...

How many is too many?

jc

sovtek

arcadegame2004 wrote:

That does not mean we do not have an ethnic-identity. You post acknowledges that the dominant genetic trait among Irish people goes back 900 years to the first inhabitants of the island.

You seemed to be afraid that one day you will be surrounded by alot of different looking/speaking people to yourself in your own country.
Now personally I wouldn't mind it...but even so I'd like to point out that immigrants (usually) adopt the country they live in.
I give as example my first generation British friend who has a Tallaght accent, my wife's half-African friend who sounds like a "culchie" (temporarily forgot how to spell that word) and a few Germans who have a generic Irish accent when they speak English.
Hell even my friends back in Texas make fun of how "yew tolk now" when ever I go back. And that's only after four years in Dublin.
Nevermind that the vast improvement in food quality (...and hopefully beer) is a gaurantee.

arcadegame2004

In response to Bonkey:

So give us some numbers, arcade.

How many is enough? How many per year, or how many total.

Until the year 2011 when all restrictions by Western EU members on immigration from the Eastern members must end, I would feel that we should impose similar restrictions such that the numbers allowed in should be based on a Government assessment of the extent of labour-shortages for that year. We should tailor immigration-policy to the needs of the Irish economy, in a context that does not encourage competition for jobs between the immigrants and Irish workers in parts of industry where labour-shortages do not exist. We all know that poor pay by Irish standards is a fortune by Polish standards. If such protections are not there to prevent too much competition from cheap labour, then racial tensions will grow and we don't want that. Excessively liberal immigration policies caused the rise of the Far-Right in Austria, France, Denmark, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I would limit all immigration by people from the Eastern EU and asylum-seekers to 15,000 per annum combined. The more Irish immigrants who return home the better for preserving our national-identity. We don't want people who don't consider themselves Irish and have no regard for the goal of a United Ireland that is held so dear to Irish people to become the majority and make that dream unattainable.

How long does someone - or a family line - have to live on the island before they can be considered Irish without marrying into an existing Irish family.

I have no worries about immigration from the original EU-15. Being rich countries themselves, we are not likely to see a flood of them coming here to reside on a permanent basis. But you see, in a way, EU-15 citizens have little incentive to gain Irish citizenship, since they already have EU citizenship including freedom of movement throughout the EU. Eastern European EU citizens are different though because we are the only country in the EU apart from Britain allowing freedom for the Easterners to travel here. That means that Eastern immigration to the Western EU will only be completely free where Britain and Ireland are the destinations (until at least 2011). Naturally then, far more will come here than would have had the entire EU been a freedom of movement zone. 24,000 came here in three months since enlargement. If this trend continues then 100,000 will have come here every 12 months. I personally feel that this is unsustainable in the long-term, and unacceptable the Irish people, especially since the figure doesn't even include people being given work-permits and asylum-seekers. Some of these asylum-seekers work illegally even while being in receipt of SW payments and free housing. By free housing I mean the "reception-centres" or whatever their called including Mosney.

How should we treat the possibility of long-term residents seeking naturalisation? Should we limit their chances to become citizens? If so...how many should we allow.

Hello. This was dealt with in the Citizenship-referendum campaign. The children get citizenship if the parents were here for 3 years before the birth. With the parents, I would again tailor this to Irish needs, economic, health-service and other matters of employment. When the 15,000 figure for total immigration by Eastern European and work-permits and asylum-seekers is reached I would say stop for that year. So if more would-be asylum-seekers want to come to Ireland they know they should try to get a work-permit instead of swindling the taxpayer with lies about fleeing persecution in Bulgaria :rolleyes:

When the government finally gets round to enacting this "ultra-urgent" constitutional change and putting the associated legal framework around it, how should they legislate for the cases of citizenship that you have platituded away in the past saying that it was "probably to be legislated for". How do we legislate for these, and still keep control of the numbers.

Thankfully Dail Eireann will regain its power to legislate on Citizenship and had it not, we would not be able to legislate for such hard cases. This question is kindof complex. The Government should probably sign treaties with some of the countries of origin to work out a solution to avoid stateless-children problems developing. As some countries don't allow hereditary citizenship, and as some of their citizenship laws are quite complicated (e.g. China) I cannot prescribe one solution that would address all of those situations. But the gist of a solution would be for China and other countries to agree to hereditary citizenship. If they don't want children to become starteless they'll sign it. Alternatively, the children returning home with their parents could apply for naturalisation and maybe get citizenship of their oarent's country that way.

So come on...tell us how it should be done. Broad strokes are enough, but numbers are what matter. YOu keep talking about ensuring a majority...so does that mean that you want a line drawn somewhere around 40% "foreign blood" - that we should allow up to (say) 2 to 2.5 million of them in? Or should it be less? Cap at 1.5 mill? 1 million? 500 thousand?

I want a majority in this country that sees itself as Irish. With 6% saying they are "not Irish" ( and this was a question on identity in the Census not a legalistic one), I don't want a sitaution where a majority say that. Naturally you and I consider ourselves Irish. The implications of a "non-Irish" majority are clear. It would destroy any chances of a United Ireland as the foreigners would probably vote against it because they don't understand they whole issue and probably do not care. There is NO way I would agree to let millions come here! That is totally unacceptable to the Irish people in my firm belief! Where would the cash come from to build all the hospitals, schools etc. that would be needed to cope with the inevitable infrastructural pressure such numbers would cause? Not to mention the incredible SW bill! And the cost of building even more roads to cope with even worse traffic-jams than we already have. Now you see? unlimited immigration isn't such a heaven after all is it? It can actually cause problems can't it? Or am I racist for saying this? Should I pretend that letting in millions is fine and hunky dory with no negative consequences whatsoever? To do so would be to put political-correctness before all other considerations and that is reckless.

Or is it jobs etc. you're worried about? So maybe it should only be, like, 10,000? Hey...in fact....while there are any unemployed in Ireland, we technically don't need any immigrants, as they'd be stealing our jobs. Maybe we should say, then, only as many as the job surplus at any given moment allows?

Bonkey I think I have answered this in my first paragraph of this post.