Dublin denies racist problem as blacks struggle to find school places

TwoShedsJackson

We are now seeing what the effects of letting the Catholic Church build and run 93% of the schools in this country are. It is ridiculous that the Department of Education are not constructing schools and then finding sponsors for them, but let the Church build them and then be powerless to do anything about the running or ethos of the school.

Wook

mise_me_fein wrote:

Once we have black kids playing Gaelic football and hurling and going for pints with the folks after the game I think we'll be much better off. Sure they'd know all about the schools if they'd have the craic in the local.

while we friendly bash their heads against the till and explain about your kind of integrating ?

Boston

TwoShedsJackson wrote:

We are now seeing what the effects of letting the Catholic Church build and run 93% of the schools in this country are. It is ridiculous that the Department of Education are not constructing schools and then finding sponsors for them, but let the Church build them and then be powerless to do anything about the running or ethos of the school.

The DOE should be the sponsor, and this isn't new. Anyone who wasn't catholic or protestant in ireland has been running into this problem for a long time.

Jumpy

Arg, yet another example of Ireland floundering around without a clue.
Too proud to copy other countries working systems, yet too inexperienced to run their own.

bohsman

dublindude wrote:

My problem is with people who come here and then start complaining or waving the race card.

Link? Looks to me like its the media playing the race card.

Jesus Wept

darkman2 wrote:

Dublin denies racist problems as black struggle to find school places

Dublin denies it?! Surely someone denies it, such as Mary Hanafin, not a city.

Flying

Determine to me what is racist.

I'd really like to know.

Coming to my country, sponging off the state, refusing to intregate,forcing sometimes Islam Sharia Aspirations down our throat, insisting they get everything an Irish citizen gets.

If we dare say boo or refuse them entry to an establishment we are racist.

I'm sorry but we are far from racist we are concerned tax payers, lining the pockets of degenerates who know the can ride the system.

As for the schools if they dont want to intergate why dont they get onto the Nigerian government or wherever they are from and build their own schools and whatever else they want and that government to also give them social welfare and massive hand outs for saying "I'm a refugee".

These people are economic locusts that will move from country to country to get what they want, if the money runs out here they will move on to the next nation of mugs !

FatherTed

Flying wrote:

I believe we should put our own citizens first and everyone else secondary.

As for racism black people are by far some of the worst racists on the planet, I have severed with several african nations and they are worse than the Klan.


By the way when did all these "African" countries join the EU as they are here by criminal and illegal means or has Nigeria become a new member of the EU.

I am far from racist I am just pissed off with these people taking advantage and not intregating (Spelling) into society.

"These people" are young Irish citizens. Plus it's hard to integrate when you are forced to attend an all black school like I saw on RTE news.

They would not bend over backwards to accomodate a White child in any of there countries so they should not expect any less here tbh

There are not asking for any special treatment. They want the same as other Irish citizens. But because they're not white and not catholic, they don't.

Rob_l

FatherTed wrote:

"These people" are young Irish citizens. Plus it's hard to integrate when you are forced to attend an all black school like I saw on RTE news.



There are not asking for any special treatment. They want the same as other Irish citizens. But because they're not white and not catholic, they don't.

It has nothing to do with skin tone it is a religious bias, it is not a racial thing but a cultural thing

Boston

FatherTed wrote:

"These people" are young Irish citizens. Plus it's hard to integrate when you are forced to attend an all black school like I saw on RTE news.

Those schools arn't all black dispite what you where shown.

There are not asking for any special treatment. They want the same as other Irish citizens. But because they're not white and not catholic, they don't.

Nothing to do with not being white, everything to do with not being catholic, which btw has been the case for along time. Doesn't christian your kids and see how many schools will accept them.

gurramok

Rob_l wrote:

It has nothing to do with skin tone it is a religious bias, it is not a racial thing but a cultural thing

So its a sectarian thing then?

Snake Plisken

Its a Government issue, before this immigration started the majority of the population of Ireland where Catholic and thus the church built schools on their grounds, now for the last 10 years with the Lax immigration laws we have an influx of immigrants and basically the Government did damn all about it and they also didn't fund any extra schools to meet this influx of immigrants.
As for the African immigrants they don't integrate into Irish Society, a lot of their kids don't even speak english and this actually slows down the amount that can be thought in the classes, I should know as it happens in my kids school and 2 teachers have told me the same thing.

Funny thing my wife saw last week in Dunnes Stores in Lucan a row between an African Lady and an Irish Middle aged lady, basically the African Lady jumped the queue for the checkouts and the Irish lady told her to get back to the end of the queue and the African lady shouted your Racist, which the Irish Lady quick as a flash said "I bet thats the first words you learn when you came here!"

Snake

Flying

FatherTed wrote:

"These people" are young Irish citizens. Plus it's hard to integrate when you are forced to attend an all black school like I saw on RTE news.



There are not asking for any special treatment. They want the same as other Irish citizens. But because they're not white and not catholic, they don't.

Determine Irish, someone who is born on the premise to get citizenship ?

Off course they are asking for special treatment, they expect to have their children educated and put into a school ahead of an "indigenous" Irish children


These people are not citizens they are illegal immigrants who have entered this country illegally, for example the hundreds of heavily pregnant Africans who turn up at ports to have Irish "Citizens" come on who are you trying to fool.

I could go down the whole white is right tripe but I am not concerned about their colour I am concerned that the actual real Irish people are now second class brow beating citizens in their own country.

Terry

Flying wrote:

Determine Irish, someone who is born on the premise to get citizenship ?

Off course they are asking for special treatment, they expect to have their children educated and put into a school ahead of an "indigenous" Irish children


These people are not citizens they are illegal immigrants who have entered this country illegally, for example the hundreds of heavily pregnant Africans who turn up at ports to have Irish "Citizens" come on who are you trying to fool.

I could go down the whole white is right tripe but I am not concerned about their colour I am concerned that the actual real Irish people are now second class brow beating citizens in their own country.

Flying, you are threading a very thin line here.

The people in question are mostly Irish citizens. Skin colour does not come into the equation, nor does the ethnicity of their parents.
Even if it did, why shouldn't these kids get an education?

Would you feel the same if the kids were Swiss?

Rob_l

gurramok wrote:

So its a sectarian thing then?

if you wish to call it that then yes it is

Wook

Flying wrote:

Coming to my country, sponging off the state, refusing to intregate,forcing sometimes Islam Sharia Aspirations down our throat, insisting they get everything an Irish citizen gets.

Bit like the irish with their irish pubs and craic ?:) and sorry i havent met anyone doing the islam thing, i did got a lot of jezus freaks ringing my doorbell though ? does that count ?

If we dare say boo or refuse them entry to an establishment we are racist.
'Define 'boo' ?

I'm sorry but we are far from racist we are concerned tax payers, lining the pockets of degenerates who know the can ride the system.
You mean the skangers ?

As for the schools if they dont want to intergate why dont they get onto the Nigerian government or wherever they are from and build their own schools and whatever else they want and that government to also give them social welfare and massive hand outs for saying "I'm a refugee".
I believe the article does say they tried to enter the school but could not, so in my eyes that is trying to 'intergate'.

These people are economic locusts that will move from country to country to get what they want, if the money runs out here they will move on to the next nation of mugs ! like the Irish when they had it hard ?[/QUOTE]

Snake Plisken

Rob_l wrote:

It has nothing to do with skin tone it is a religious bias, it is not a racial thing but a cultural thing

No its goddamn not a religious issue, otherwise a lot of the catholic schools wouldn't allow non-catholic immigrants into the schools an I know as here in Lucan its nearly 40 percent of the pupils attending are non-national.

Also another bone in bonnet over a couple of Arab ladies who enter the school with their faces covered and actually scare the small children as they look like ghosts, they should be allowed to enter the school grounds unless they have their faces uncovered so as not to frighten the junior infants :mad:

Snake

Snake Plisken

Also I'm sure that a lot of the white immigrants like the polish,lituanians etc have similar issues with getting their kids into schools but as they skin is the same colour thats not an issue.

Snake

Rob_l

Snake Plisken wrote:

No its goddamn not a religious issue, otherwise a lot of the catholic schools wouldn't allow non-catholic immigrants into the schools an I know as here in Lucan its nearly 40 percent of the pupils attending are non-national.

Also another bone in bonnet over a couple of Arab ladies who enter the school with their faces covered and actually scare the small children as they look like ghosts, they should be allowed to enter the school grounds unless they have their faces uncovered so as not to frighten the junior infants :mad:

Snake

I dont see how you can say accepting student based on which version of christianity or other religion they are practising is not a religious issue.

it is clearly the only issue in the case

It is clearly a faith choosing members of its own doctrine over member of other faiths doctrines

Flying

Terry wrote:

Flying, you are threading a very thin line here.

The people in question are mostly Irish citizens. Skin colour does not come into the equation, nor does the ethnicity of their parents.
Even if it did, why shouldn't these kids get an education?

Would you feel the same if the kids were Swiss?

If my kids were Swiss I would have to abandon them


Sorry again I myself do not determine these people as Irish Citizens and if they are their parents did so by deceptive purposes, if they entered the country "legally" and emigrated here fine but they did not, hence my grievance.


In regards to these children getting an education no problem but our children first, as they say charity starts at home and that goes the same for actual real Irish citizens.

Also as for the Irish in the UK or the US, they did intergate by and large and did not claim refugee status and yes there was many chancers among them.

As for the term skanger if I call a Nigerian one of them am I a Racist ?

dade

nikolaitr wrote:

This is nothing new. If anyone can remember, there was a news item last year I believe about parents lining up over night outside schools to get place(I believe the school was in swords).

that was not because of lack of places. parents wanted their kids in a particular school and so queued over night. other schools in the area did not have an issue with over night queues. The reason behind parents wanting to get kids in that particular school had something to do with getting better grades on average over the other schools in the area. So who can blame the parents to be honest.

the current problem is that balbriggan has grown huge in recent years and the local councils and government have done F all to put schools in. Swords in general is stuck for schools yet estates that have areas earmarked for a school can't get the funding to put in schools. Educate together want to get into some of the areas but parents want religion thought in the schools. (personally i believe like the pub religion should be left out of the class room)

it has F all to do with racism, most schools operate on a system where by if you had an older brother or sister in the school then you where automatically accepted into it. if you didn't you went on the list. I know of people that put kids on lists as soon as they popped out as have others

Nevyn

Snake Plisken wrote:

No its goddamn not a religious issue, otherwise a lot of the catholic schools wouldn't allow non-catholic immigrants into the schools an I know as here in Lucan its nearly 40 percent of the pupils attending are non-national.

A catholic patronised school has the mandate to put catholic children first.
The school is funded by the dept of education on a per child grant.
So if the school needs 60 jr infants they will take in to fill those places.
If the school can reach 60 jr infants with just catholic children then they will do so.

If there are 61 children and 1 of them is not catholic the place will got to the child who is catholic,
even if the catholic child is a non national.

Boston

Snake Plisken wrote:

No its goddamn not a religious issue, otherwise a lot of the catholic schools wouldn't allow non-catholic immigrants into the schools an I know as here in Lucan its nearly 40 percent of the pupils attending are non-national.

Also another bone in bonnet over a couple of Arab ladies who enter the school with their faces covered and actually scare the small children as they look like ghosts, they should be allowed to enter the school grounds unless they have their faces uncovered so as not to frighten the junior infants :mad:

Snake

Non national does not mean non-catholic.

Jesus Wept

Lets get religion out of schools.

It's not the place for it, imo

//awaits backlash.

curiousxxx1

This thread has gone way OUT OF CONTROL.
As an international student, my parents pay way over odds for me to school in Ireland... Before the "Celtic tiger" the Irish ran to England, America and Australia to name a few countries... The Irish were "the black sheep" how is that now you can discriminate because of the colour of skin...... If there are no places in the schools then the parent should move to areas where they can place their children. Unfortunately Nigerians have taken advantage of the system but not all of us have. There are a few that are not and PLEASE stop generalising.
It's true that when things don't go our way that a lot of people like to pull the race card, but who wouldn't. We are the minority in this country and most times people really are RACIST....I have had a few myself but i do not judge every book by it's cover

Nevyn

Lets get religious indoctrination and a single religious point of view out of schools.

Multi denominational is the way to go tbh, let kids learn a little bit about many differnt religions and cultures rather then being jesus centric.

seamus

curiousxxx1 wrote:

most times people really are RACIST

Now who's generalising

You'll find that most Irish people aren't racist, publically or privately. There's a certain amount of furore caused because the extreme liberals and the media are unable to distinguish bare-faced racism from making race-related observations.

E.g. "Jaysus those chinese lads are great workers". Race-related observation - may or may not be strictly true, but it is the truth as the speaker sees it.

"Jaysus those Polish lads know how to drink". Again, race-related observation. May or may not be true *in general*, but from an observer's POV that's how it may appear. Some would incorrectly call it racism or bigotry.

The stuff that you see in Charlie's at 4am from drunken knackers, and the abuse you hear the odd time on the street - that's racism. Unfounded, unprovoked, untrue bigotry based on race.

darkman2

There are up shots to immigration like all those Brazilians in Gorey - We may have a decent football team some day:D

pretty-in-pink

Its as rascist as when a whole bunch of Irish, Catholic kids couldn't get into school due to there being no room

ffs you look anything darker then milk bottle and all of a sudden its rascist

mike65

This is being discussed on Politics forum and is a Dublin issue according to the thread starter so maybe it should be moved to Dublin or merged with the Politics thread no?

Mike.

dumbyearbook

curiousxxx1 wrote:

This thread has gone way OUT OF CONTROL.
As an international student, my parents pay way over odds for me to school in Ireland... Before the "Celtic tiger" the Irish ran to England, America and Australia to name a few countries... The Irish were "the black sheep" how is that now you can discriminate because of the colour of skin...... If there are no places in the schools then the parent should move to areas where they can place their children. Unfortunately Nigerians have taken advantage of the system but not all of us have. There are a few that are not and PLEASE stop generalising.
It's true that when things don't go our way that a lot of people like to pull the race card, but who wouldn't. We are the minority in this country and most times people really are RACIST....I have had a few myself but i do not judge every book by it's cover

Whats over the odds? What course are you doing?

If you feel it is expensie did you consider studying in another country? Are you aware that the gov. here do this as a money earner and end up giving selling places to foreign students? There are lots of kids here who would like to have got your place through the CAO and more who would actually pay for it. So thank yourself lucky you have got the opportunity.

also to the poster above (third page) who says its a bad sign that we let the Church build and run our schools - can they advise who would have built/ran a school if the church had'nt?

considering the country had'nt the price of a box of matches at the time and did their best by eventually allowing for a path to free education, if it had'nt been for the RC church back in the early days that ever so well quoted 'young educated workforce' would be very different today as they are the kids of people educated by the church.

There are some real short memories in Ireland, formed around the year 1994/5/6 mass amnesia.

dumbyearbook

TwoShedsJackson wrote:

We are now seeing what the effects of letting the Catholic Church build and run 93% of the schools in this country are. It is ridiculous that the Department of Education are not constructing schools and then finding sponsors for them, but let the Church build them and then be powerless to do anything about the running or ethos of the school.

This is the quote i was on about above.

Its actually 99% of primary schools are catholic 3000 odd, there are 100 or so that are not.

FatherTed

Flying wrote:

Determine Irish, someone who is born on the premise to get citizenship ?

Off course they are asking for special treatment, they expect to have their children educated and put into a school ahead of an "indigenous" Irish children


These people are not citizens they are illegal immigrants who have entered this country illegally, for example the hundreds of heavily pregnant Africans who turn up at ports to have Irish "Citizens" come on who are you trying to fool.

I could go down the whole white is right tripe but I am not concerned about their colour I am concerned that the actual real Irish people are now second class brow beating citizens in their own country.

If a 5 year old born in Dublin and is a citizen, it doesnt matter whether his parents are the Dunnes from Clondalkin or the Ochoas from Lagos. He is an Irish citizen and it is the duty of the government to provide him an education.

Tha Gopher

Thaedydal wrote:

Lets get religious indoctrination and a single religious point of view out of schools.

Multi denominational is the way to go tbh, let kids learn a little bit about many differnt religions and cultures rather then being jesus centric.

Do you have any idea how little religious teaching your average catholic school does?

Nevyn

Well aware considering that I have no real option but to have my two children in the local primary school which I have to walk through the local catholic church grounds to get to the school front gate.

It starts each morning when they assemble in the class room and a christain prayer is said, there is grace before and after lunch and a prayer at home time and that is even touching on the reglious eduction in the Alive-o series and that catholicism is taught in the same factual way that the teacher teaches children that 2+2=4.

And then there is all the stories and art and celebrations which are done in the context of the christian holy days.

Tha Gopher

And a few prayers and a walk through the church grounds harms them by.....Im lost here. In my day the few non Irish (i.e. muslim) lads we had went to a room where they could catch up on the homework they were meant to have done the previous evening, so it worked out rather well for them, as opposed to us sitting at windowsills with books in hand 10 mins before break ended

Out of curiousity do you do christmas/Santa with them?

Nevyn

My children are irish and so am I and we are not catered for in this country nevermind non nationals.

Prayers to a god that is not thiers, having to tell them that the teacher is wrong about sin, heaven, hell and that going to mass is not important
(and having to be up at night with a child who was worried that they and thier family would be in hell after we died) but that the teacher is right about maths, history geogrpahy ect

I have already been through the 'fun' of first communion year with one of them and have to go through it again this year.

We don't do christmas but celebrate winter solstice and Santa does call to this house.

DonJose

FatherTed wrote:

If a 5 year old born in Dublin and is a citizen, it doesnt matter whether his parents are the Dunnes from Clondalkin or the Ochoas from Lagos. He is an Irish citizen and it is the duty of the government to provide him an education.

LOL I for one would NEVER consider a Nigerian child born in Ireland as Irish, he might hold an Irish passport but he ain't Irish. If mother was Irish and father Nigerian then he'd be Irish/Nigerian. If my kids were born in Japan would they magically become Japanese

curiousxxx1

dumbyearbook wrote:

Whats over the odds? What course are you doing?

If you feel it is expensie did you consider studying in another country? Are you aware that the gov. here do this as a money earner and end up giving selling places to foreign students? There are lots of kids here who would like to have got your place through the CAO and more who would actually pay for it. So thank yourself lucky you have got the opportunity.

dumbyearbook- count myself lucky? I bet you don't think it's over the odds to pay €32,000 + to study medicine in Royal College and that is minus living expenses(rent, food and bills). You probably won the lotto but if you do the math a parent spending at least €55,000 on fees for 6 years is a HELL lot of money so please do not tell me i am lucky. And i did go through CAO and got 510 in the leaving cert so don't tell me that i don't think everyone can afford to pay that kind of money.

Nevyn

curiousxxx1 the education here being talked about it primary and secondary schools.

Nevyn

curiousxxx1 the education here being talked about it primary and secondary schools.

curiousxxx1

Thaedydal wrote:

curiousxxx1 the education here being talked about it primary and secondary schools.

.... I referred to international students, i meant in College students
If anyone misinterpreted me then i apologise, this subject is as i said is getting out of control.

dumbyearbook

curiousxxx1 wrote:

dumbyearbook- count myself lucky? I bet you don't think it's over the odds to pay €32,000 + to study medicine in Royal College and that is minus living expenses(rent, food and bills). You probably won the lotto but if you do the math a parent spending at least €55,000 on fees for 6 years is a HELL lot of money so please do not tell me i am lucky. And i did go through CAO and got 510 in the leaving cert so don't tell me that i don't think everyone can afford to pay that kind of money.

Ah bo hoo. Your not an International student if you did the leaving - had you got the 550/560 required for Med in TCD or UCD youd have got free fees fgs.

Get a loan if you must (but you never will...) you can pay it back once you make it, and yes you should still consider your self lucky as you are lucky your in the course you want and a spot that loads of people would love but cant have as they could'nt affford the fees. On the other hand there are loads of people who could easily afford the 300K over six years dont fool yourself into thinking otherwise.

I actually thought you were a non cao entrant so fair play, you are on a tottaly different topic here to the rest of this thread so A) I should'nt encourage you and You have no reason to be saying "this has got out of hand" and go about the place trying to calm it down.

Why study in Ireland if its so much hassle for you? You coud do it in Prague for 1/10 th of the price? Stop moaning, you sound like a spoilt child, tbh.

milmo

This is a post I put on another thread on the autistic boy which sums up my experiences.

milmo wrote:

I have lived and worked in countries in West Africa for a year and I only comment on that of which I have direct experience. My comments do not extend to asylum seekers from other parts of the world

Before my African experiences I would have held liberal attitudes similar to those expressed in the previous threads. However I am now quiet cynical and take each case on a case by case basis.

I have been to UN refugee camps. People there carry their few possessions on their heads, had no idea where Ireland was and had no concept of how to get here. These were genuine people in need of help, but had neither the money, education, knowledge or capability to come here.

I worked with many educated middle class Africans (from many nations) who had little regard for their less fortunate countrymen and were more concerned with personal status and wealth. Despite their positions in African society most wished to leave and live in Europe for economic reasons. Life at the bottom of the social ladder in Ireland was preferable financially to their affluent life at home.

An EU passport was priceless to them and this desire was driven by personal gain rather than personal safety. They were more than aware of western guilt over colonialism and slavery and had no qualms of playing the race card.

I believe the majority of African asylum seekers to Ireland are economic migrants and not refugees. In my opinion genuine refugees are suffering due to the abuse of the asylum process by economic migrants.

It is wrong to that our system takes so long to process cases and this should be changed, though verifying claims is often impossible.

I feel uncomfortable by what I perceive as a positive discrimination towards Africans in some sectors. Africans are unfairly portrayed as victims and some play on this to their own advantage. I don't think I have come across any protests or campaigns to prevent a Chinese/Eastern European/Kurd/Arab person etc from being deported. In my opinion discrimination is discrimination whether it be positive or negative.

If you truely believe in treating people equally then you must also accept that they are capable of human failings and are not beyond exploiting the weaknesses in our system.

I have no doubt that previous posts have been motivated by sincere kindness and humanity, and I genuinely respect your compassion.

However, there has been no proper open debate in Ireland on this issue. The middle ground has remained silent, and the vacuum has been filled with the ignorant extremists on both sides (not accusing anybody here!!).

Overall, immigration has been a good thing for this country but it must be controlled and transparent if we are to really prevent racism taking hold. Repressing unease will only cause it to fester in to something much nastier.

I have been to Africa and seen the good and the bad. My views, are based on my own personal experiences. You don't have to like them but don't dismiss them as racist because they're not fashionable.

IMHO the arguments on behalf of this family are naive at best and disingenuous at worst.

Milmo

IMO the vast majority of African migrants are not genuine refugees. They are abusing our system for economic reasons. I have come to this conclusion having been to some of the warzones in question. Nigerians have no legitimate legal reasons to claim refugee status here.

As a country we are avoiding the elephant in the room and we are now seeing the first cracks appearing with the school place issue. Integration/education is a part of the solution but it ranks far behind transparent, but stringent checks and balances when allowing people stay in any country.

Of the many African professionals I worked with in Africa, I can safely say that 99%, for cultural and educational reasons could hold down any thing but a menial job here. They just weren't competent by our standards. While immigration has ultimately benefitted the country in the short term, it has been as a result of Ireland gaining the labour of skilled professionals (predominately from eastern europe) and not unskilled Africans.

Residents against racism and people who share their views are ultimately doing a disservice to Irish people and legal immigrants alike. They are perpetrating the image of Africans as victims (a racist viewpoint in itself but one that suits their purposes), stifling legitimate concern and debate on the issue of immigration, and alienating the middle ground. This is going to affect our descendants for generations to come so we can't afford to fudge this issue any longer.

Unless we take a mature and hard look at how immigration is occurring we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of other European nations. In fact we are repeating those mistakes already. We have to regulate the numbers and types of immigrant coming to our shores before we can find realistic solutions to integrating people in to our society.

Karl Hungus

Pfft... There were no racists in Ireland untill black people came along.

TwoShedsJackson

dumbyearbook wrote:

also to the poster above (third page) who says its a bad sign that we let the Church build and run our schools - can they advise who would have built/ran a school if the church had'nt?

The State. They abdicated responsibility for education to the Catholic Church after we became an independent nation, and this is just one of the problems now being caused by their bowing to the Church.

dodgyme

milmo wrote:

This is a post I put on another thread on the autistic boy which sums up my experiences.




IMO the vast majority of African migrants are not genuine refugees. They are abusing our system for economic reasons. I have come to this conclusion having been to some of the warzones in question. Nigerians have no legitimate legal reasons to claim refugee status here.

As a country we are avoiding the elephant in the room and we are now seeing the first cracks appearing with the school place issue. Integration/education is a part of the solution but it ranks far behind transparent, but stringent checks and balances when allowing people stay in any country.

Of the many African professionals I worked with in Africa, I can safely say that 99%, for cultural and educational reasons could hold down any thing but a menial job here. They just weren't competent by our standards. While immigration has ultimately benefitted the country in the short term, it has been as a result of Ireland gaining the labour of skilled professionals (predominately from eastern europe) and not unskilled Africans.

Residents against racism and people who share their views are ultimately doing a disservice to Irish people and legal immigrants alike. They are perpetrating the image of Africans as victims (a racist viewpoint in itself but one that suits their purposes), stifling legitimate concern and debate on the issue of immigration, and alienating the middle ground. This is going to affect our descendants for generations to come so we can't afford to fudge this issue any longer.

Unless we take a mature and hard look at how immigration is occurring we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of other European nations. In fact we are repeating those mistakes already. We have to regulate the numbers and types of immigrant coming to our shores before we can find realistic solutions to integrating people in to our society.

Agree on all this milmo. Is spent alot of time working around the world and the difference between the eastern european countries and west africa (in particular nigeria). (I pick these two since these are the main places our new immigration originated) couldnt be more stark.

Firstly it really annoyed me when people called roma gypsies, romanians. The perception was that all romanians were gypsies which was completely wrong.
Secondly in countries like romania where TBH it was a kip when I went their first nearly 10 years ago, the people wanted a better life and wanted to work for it but were always hard working and smart. Same was true of other eastern block countries like czech rep/poland etc. at the time when I was working there.

In Nigeria the place was just completely corrupt. The middle classes with bad education got jobs etc in courier/shipping companies, hotels , banks, oil companies etc through corruption and then when the ireland inc stuff came up abandoned there own countries to chance their arm in ireland. Nigeria is so wealthy people would not believe it but corruption is rife. However the goodie two shoes in ireland know more then me and you and our like. They know more then people who have worked all over the world (and know the score). Your point that "We have to regulate the numbers and types of immigrant coming to our shores " is exactly right. Not every country of origin is the same and cultures differ. We need to protect Ireland by having migrates meeting a criteria and chancers such as the nigerians (I would in my experience be honest and say all of them 99.999999% came here under a scam) assessed as such. That is not to say that they are all here scamming now (alot may be contributing etc) but it is not a good start. The irish were very slow outta the blocks on this one, but it is probably too late.

SimpleSam06

Good post Milmo, and I have to say it echoes the accounts of a couple of missionaries I spoke to recently on the subject, who had been there. They had a few more things to say as well, but I won't repeat them here. Just a few points:

• About half of Nigeria is Catholic, and most of the rest are Muslim. I haven't heard of anyone being refused school places on the basis of being Muslim, so we can probably discount religion as being the problem here. And yes, I am aware not all of the African refugees are Nigerian.
• The actual problem is an already overburdened and poorly organised education system that is trying to cope with an unexpected influx of new people, and certain groups trying to play the race card in order to force the education system to choose children of a different skin colour over native Irish. That is a bad idea on so many levels its not even funny.

Ireland is a predominantly Catholic country, and while it is slowly pulling away from the influence of the Church, it is a long process. People with problems with the Catholic school system need to accept that reality and work to change it.

Ireland has no history of colonialism, and thus does not (or should not) share the "white middle class guilt" that many people speak of, and which has been promoted extensively by US media to deal with their own domestic situation.

Many of the Nigerian and African refugees who are currently resident (or "citizens" as some have said) came to take advantage of a loophole in the Irish immigration system - any child born here automatically becomes a citizen.

FatherTed wrote:

If a 5 year old born in Dublin and is a citizen, it doesnt matter whether his parents are the Dunnes from Clondalkin or the Ochoas from Lagos. He is an Irish citizen and it is the duty of the government to provide him an education.

This well meaning clause has since been revoked due to this abuse, and as far as I know, backdated. This was due to heavily pregnant women arriving on planes (a very dangerous practice in its own right) in their tens of thousands and giving birth shortly after arriving. They are not owed anything culturally, historically, or morally by the Irish state.

curiousxxx1

dumbyearbook wrote:

Ah bo hoo. Your not an International student if you did the leaving - had you got the 550/560 required for Med in TCD or UCD youd have got free fees fgs.

TCD or UCD it cost over €20,000 to study medicine

spooiirt!!

Say you got 500 black kids with no school, you impose (something like) affirmative action to get them into schools, those places in the schools have to be taken away from someone.

Result : 500 white kids with no schools. There lieth the problem and the reason why i hate affirmative action.