Time for a zero refugee policy? - *Read OP for mod warnings and threadbans - updated 11/5/24*

creeper1

Oh yeah you can be granted asylum even if your country isn't at war. Boy do I know that. It should not be the case though.

Gay marriage is illegal across the Islamic world and China. Do we have an obligation to all those people? (which would number in the tens of millions).

Similarly women are second class citizens in Afghanistan. Should we accept all the females of that country? We seriously should not since it's their own fathers and brothers giving them that treatment. They need to change their own societies through talking to their family members.

What is NOT ON is Ireland being Santa Claus to the whole world.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120559178#Comment_120559178

They only chose to read one email.

high_tower

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561080#Comment_120561080

Maybe not from you. But any opinion stated openly which goes against open borders isn’t greeted warmly to say the least. I’ve been branded far right on here and elsewhere on many occasions just because I’ve called out this madness.

regarding the “cultural apocalypse nonsense” have you ever lived for a long period of time outside of Ireland ? You’d be shocked to know how quickly demographics can change along with the tensions that brings that up until very recently just didn’t exist in Ireland.

Honesty Policy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120559312#Comment_120559312

I was watching Supergarden on Thursday. The family were from Morrocco and had been given a free Social House in Meath. They said they had been living in Dublin in a small apartment in Dublin for 8 years, God love 'em!

It got me thinking how they qualify to even be here in the first place??? Also, obviously not working too or just doing the bare minimum to keep salary under the amount you qualify for SH. Both adults looked very capable of working to me!

Bit like one of our lovely, local taxi drivers who I rarely see on the rank, picks and chooses his work from experience, has about 5 children and bang has been given an A rated SH around the corner from us.

Only difference is we have paid 315k for our house, will be mortgaged up to our eyeballs for the rest of our working life, work everyday and don't pick and choose our shifts nor impregnated half the local female population!

System is so wrong!

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120560970#Comment_120560970

Fair enough. That could be one approach to the problem. The Med is huge though. The human survival instinct is very strong and Europe also has long land borders.

It's interesting that the UK are often criticising France for not doing enough to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel by open boats or ferries/containers etc. I am sure the French think that if immigrants wants to pass thru France to UK, then let them off. Less problems for France. It's a symptom of what could happen when mass migrations start.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561514#Comment_120561514

But again, this is melodramatic. Open borders? We literally have an existing policy of borders which are not open. Border control is the status quo. Most people from what I can see are happy for a balance to be struck between border control, the benefits of the Common Travel Area, EU Free Movement and humanitarian considerations. This is not supporting "open borders". I think most rational people understand that there are downsides to this, and there is a liability for the system to be abused, and indeed that abuse should be tackled.

The fact however that our border control is not controlled enough for your particular perspective does not magically mean that you get to say that we have open borders just so you make everything sound so much more dramatic and compelling.

And yeah I have lived abroad and to this day have been in few places where individual rights, tolerance, justice, balanced law and order, stability, living standards and general prosperity are as good as that which we enjoy in Western Europe. And yet these are all the countries where mass immigration should surely have meant the erosion of all those things and Western Europe should be a total shitholes by now and not the generally peaceful stable and good places to live that they are.

Funny that.

Potatoeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120559623#Comment_120559623

There is a hard limit to the number we can take in. At some point they will have to refuse entry or protection. At that point genuine refugees will be turned back too. It’s more difficult to retroactively remove what was granted to those gaming they system.

The proponents of mass immigration seem to think these people will accept their values while encouraging them to bring their culture and religion. How do you square that when their religion and culture views things like homosexuality as a sin?

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561915#Comment_120561915

Yeah but you're asking this as if it's a hypothetical when we can already point to outcomes. According to the detractors of multiculturalism — Europe has been experiencing decades of mass importation of all these allegedly backwards, useless, ne'er-do-wells who will drag us into a kind of dystopian Shariah Stone Age. But in all this time, social liberalism has advanced, not decreased, people are less religious, not more. Indeed, in our own country, despite what we are told is a supposedly open border policy where any ISIS militant with a sob story about how his cat needing Irish veterinary medicines can get a 5 bedroom house in Castleknock . . . Ireland has become more liberal in the past 20 years and more tolerant — not less.

So the outcomes you seem to present as scary — i.e. letting homophobes into the country — does seem to be more than a bit off-kilter with the fact that monocultural Ireland was a much colder house for gay people than multicultural Ireland. That's not to say that multiculturalism has caused this shift, but it certainly seems easier to argue that it has helped it rather than hindered.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562076#Comment_120562076

There has been some interesting polling recently showing that Irish people think that Ireland is a far better place to live now than it was several decades ago and have no wish to return to the older version. This is hardly a surprise - the earlier version had Catholic Church dominance, Dev, the Magdalene laundries, industrial schools, widespread poverty, strong media censorship, discrimination against most minorities, mass emigration etc etc.

The very fact that our population is growing quickly through natural means and immigration would suggest most people think the country is a good place to live. The Ireland of the 1950s - late 80s (one with zero immigration and a monoculture incidentally) was a very grim place with not much going for it.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561915#Comment_120561915

How can anyone be a "proponent of mass immigration"? Just because people project that it will happen, doesn't automatically mean they want billions of people on the move due to scarcity of food and water. Why does everyone have to be labelled? I sure as hell have no idea how we will cope but Ireland and the EU will need to plan for it. It will be extremely challenging, like nothing we have ever seen. I do find the thread title amusing given what's to come. After all is said and done, this is a discussion forum - nobody here is deciding policy and the policy makers are certainly not reading our posts 😂

Of course we could stick our heads in the sand and hope for the best...

Backstreet Moyes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562148#Comment_120562148

Can you pass on the links so we can see those polls?

You seem to reference polls very regularly without actually giving any links.

It's not even worth addressing your pathetic attempt to throw in immigrants coming to Ireland since the 50s to 80s as a big reason Ireland is a great place to live.

The reason is the EU funding not immigrants, although I'm not shocked you overlooked the biggest factor why Ireland is not as grim as it used to be.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562563#Comment_120562563

I was born in 1971 and you are looking back through rose tinted glasses. Economic ruin, high unemployment, high interest rates, high crime rates, high forced emigration (I had to leave to find work but came back) and a sick twisted hypocritical church telling us what to do and abusing/killing vulnerable women and children, corrupt politicians making themselves rich etc. Many people were poor, hungry, miserable and depressed in those decades. Not sure how you were unaffected.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562474#Comment_120562474

Seems a bit simplistic to say that EU funding has made Ireland a better place to live rather than immigrants. The truth is that it's been a whole array of things that have acted in combination — the globalisation of the Irish economy has been one big thing that has helped attract business here, which has in turn helped Ireland retain and eventually even attract young talent. Immigration has undoubtedly played a role in that. Being a successful country is not some perpetual stroll in the park though. Of course it means that migrants beyond the category of first world college graduates are going to want to come, and that presents challenges (and opportunities).

What it really comes down to is, in the reality of a world that is much smaller than it has ever been thanks to easier, safer travel and better telecommunications, successful prosperous and stable countries are going to attract migrants and are probably going to need migrants to generate an economy in the context of ageing populations. I don't really know what the alternative is, either drive the country's economy and / or respect of individual rights into the dirt — or ban emigration for Irish people and make them all stay here where they would be forced to focus on the national effort to 'save Ireland' from whatever doomsday scenario multiculturalism is apparently going to rain down upon us.

Backstreet Moyes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562594#Comment_120562594

I know what would be a much better idea for irish citizens in regards an ageing population.

What about incentives for irish people to have more kids.

High taxes and high childcare makes it very difficult for irish people to have kids.

With the lack of houses forcing our youth to immigrate or live at home into their 30s or 40s means things are only going to get worse.

But replacing all these people with people with people who in a lot of cases don't even speak English is going to save Ireland.

While we keep pushing up the retirement age on irish people to pay for the people who are supposed to be paying our pensions.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562563#Comment_120562563

I certainly was and living in a working class part of Dublin. It was an awful period - widespread poverty all around me, many families couldn't afford a car, common for adult men to be unemployed rather than working. Also, a very inward and parochial society, not exposed to any outside ideas.

It's quite telling that it's this parochial and monoculture version of Ireland that the anti-immigration reactionaries would love to get back to. They're living in entirely the wrong era - they would be far more at home in Dev's version of Ireland.

Kermit.de.frog

The declining birth rates, and thus the need for high immigration, comes down to social policy like women in careers instead of raising children (by far the most damaging to a sustainable native population) or other things like abortion etc etc

These things brought in for various reasons, mostly noble, but demographically suicidal. Not enough children.

At some point in the future these will have to be reversed to stop a devastating population decline.

Until then we have to import while labour is available to import.

Society can't have it both ways. We have to either raise the birth rate of the native population or import.

Raising the birth rate back to replacement means reversing some social changes in the last 40 years.

It's not a question now but within a generation or two serious choices have to be made.

Until then if we want to maintain our standard of living and have workers to pay the pensions of an ever aging population we need large amounts of immigration.

Backstreet Moyes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562660#Comment_120562660

How are people who want a cap on immigration looking for us to go back to how things were in the past?

How would stopping immigration put us into poverty and unemployment?

Of all your bizarre posts around immigration this must be near the top.

Please explain to me your reasoning behind your statement.

You never do back up your statements but this would be fascinating to understand.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562723#Comment_120562723

Immigration didn't force FF and FG to create the housing crisis and health service crisis. FF broke the housing market in 2007. FG somehow made it worse since. FG promised to end the trolley crisis over a decade ago and it's worse than ever. They cannot even build a Children's hospital without going over budget by 5 times. FF and FG have always been corrupt but people kept voting for them. In the 80s you voted for whoever the rest of your family voted (the guy who fixed the potholes). I regret voting FG myself for 20 years.

How can you blame immigration for any of the above?

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562740#Comment_120562740

You complete misread his post and the context and came up with weird conclusions. Try again. It's not difficult.

Backstreet Moyes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562783#Comment_120562783

Explain it to me so.

I see poverty and unemployment in one paragraph.

Anti immigrants wanting to go back the past in the next paragraph.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562898#Comment_120562898

In terms of EU migration here - so long as we are part of the EU we can not implement an Australia type pick and choose system which puts our needs first.

For immigration from outside the EU it seems more hazy. We choose to have a very feckless approach for which the consequences are still embryonic but I think huge damage has already been done to this society and the fallout will be in the years ahead.

Even if we pull up the bridge it's just damage limitation of what has already been done.

I agree we should take only those with skills we need and we shouldn't be shy about it. Other countries aren't.

Asylum seekers should also have minimum requirements here too. Why shouldn't they?

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563020#Comment_120563020

What a miserable miserable view

Was talking to an Egyptian at a social event today. Advanced computer science degree from an American university, working in what I can only guess is a 6 figure job by the name of the company. A very high chance he's a bigger net contributer to the economy than you in absolute terms via taxes, and inderectly via value added to economy (in fact I guarantee it).

You'd take one look at him and conclude scrounger. Utterly miserable, and your soul must by atrophying thinking this way day-to-day. I pity you.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562474#Comment_120562474

Here you go : Ipsos Global Trends Survey, September 2021. Ireland one of the main outliers in that a majority of people have no wish to return to the Ireland of the past.

The_Kew_Tour

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561521#Comment_120561521

The sad thing is it will never change either.

The working person is the biggest fool in this country a d certainly tte biggest loser.

It wasnt me

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563060#Comment_120563060

Surprised you where actually talking to an Egyptian at a social event considering you're never off here sprouting tripe.

105 pages in as you so eloquently put it yesterday and you still can't distinguish between skilled immigration, from America and scammers arriving from Europe.

An Egyptian he says. 😂

One example from 20k+.

Potatoeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562076#Comment_120562076

The end result has been a rise in right wing governments on the continent and generally a rise in the support of right wing parties. France very nearly had one too. Even Germany has a massive increase which I never expected to see. Why is this the case if it’s all going so well?

joggerjogger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561633#Comment_120561633

And there are numerous countries and a huge developed union with resources to address this problem. Land borders are even easier secured

You can't have a sensible immigration, integration or diversity policy if it's a human trafficking chaos free for all

France is happy to let them pass and the tories being tories in the UK don't want to spend any money to address the problem and would rather blame France and hand them the bill

Chaos just leads to chaos, it can't be chaos

joggerjogger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562660#Comment_120562660

You don't speak for them and that's downright insulting. Nobody advocates that. People just want sensible grown up society accepting and protecting policies.

joggerjogger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563060#Comment_120563060

You may not like the truth but it remains true

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563743#Comment_120563743

Oh look, it's the arbiter of truth who thinks immigrants are "possible murderers and rapists". Do you ever wonder when you're going through immigration in another country does the officer think you're a possible murderer and rapist?