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

Blind As A Bat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122219664#Comment_122219664

 "the both of you accept you have issues with legal immigration"

I don't have a problem with it in moderation. I have a problem with the possibility that we're heading towards an imbalance where we'll have a minority of ethnically Irish people. I've known hundreds of foreigners and for the most part I liked them. I take people as I find them and I don't care what race or nationality they are.

But - I'm Irish! I like spending time and interacting with other Irish people. I l like the craic, the banter, the shared sense of who we are.

I also love the remnants of our ancient culture, our quiet and mystical places, our heritage, I can feel our ancestors in those places. It touches my soul as an Irish person, as does our language and music.

A few years ago a group of Punjabi guys in Ireland did a video for St Patrick's Day of themselves doing a traditional Punjabi dance to some Irish traditional music. That's fine up to a point but what about 150 years from now? What will it mean to be 'Irish'? Will we just be a weird mish-mash of bits and pieces of everybody's traditions and culture??

Even just take the English syllabus for Leaving Cert - what will it need to look like in order to be inclusive of all these different cultures? Will our incredible, world-renowned tradition of Anglo-Irish literature be sidelined or reduced to a minimum, merely one small part of a 'global' curriculum, because it doesn't have relevance for our growing non-Irish population and we need to engage them?

I don't know. I just find the whole thing very unsettling.

Fitzy149

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221566#Comment_122221566

Sadly, yes . The Island of saints n scholars is no more. "It's with O Leary in the grave .. "

Our Irish culture got extinguished / despatched with a government tweet. How apt in this age of technology, a single tweet, translated into 8 languages, would sink us as a viable country.

A single tweet that basically said ... just drop what you doin, get your ass over here now, asap, we'll give you your own doorkey, an income and bfore you can say, wtf, a passport .. c'mon, what are you waiting for ?

- got a better offer ? Lols. Thought not ..

c u soon,

Love

Ireland "

The schools will be a challenge right enough. All your sudden new neighbours from Iraq, Somalia and Chad will be wantin their kids taught differently. None of this Christian nonsense .. they'll have acquired an Irish passport in the meanwhile and their extended families will have arrived and set up home .. you'll be able to invite em round for tea and discuss the cultural differences ye can never quite bridge

Unsettling yes .. and will soon become more unsettling.

We will become the underdog in our own country within a decade, as we watch the number of Irish residents here dwindle by comparison with migrants and their extended families

I guess we have to listen to our government. Welcome our new neighbours (they have forced amongst us), pay our tax monies to help them set up here .. and pay their continued welfare if necessary.

And keep control any simmering little resentments in case you fall foul of our governments new Hate Laws ..

zerosquared

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221701#Comment_122221701

make sure to vote for independents like Ming at eu elections, the current lot are doing everything as shown earlier in thread to make this future you wrote about a reality

Edit; I am being sarcastic of course!

tom23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221566#Comment_122221566

Personally think what we were where is gone. God knows what we will morph into. You can be sure you will be gaslit all the way.

seenitall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221717#Comment_122221717

I’m confused. You just told us in your previous post that Ming is against the EU support for Ukraine and always votes in alignment with the interests of Kremlin to swamp the EU with refugees. And now you are urging us to vote for him?

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221701#Comment_122221701

Tweet, what tweet? The one linking to a whitepaper saying we might, in a couple of years, depending on how the housing crisis goes, have a limited amount of own door accommodation?

Open your eyes, it was the video that did it.

An Irish TD releasing videos of his Dail speeches, telling the world how much we love IPAs, his admiration for the honorable Islamic cultures, comparing them to our national heroes, advising on how to dodge deportation, and offering swimming groups for the 'unvetted' males to get to know the locals.

If there really was a social media factor to increased numbers arriving. Wouldn't you think this was it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7IeMJs9q6E&list=PLzPlXJb0DMbxICL5WFM7A-y-RtIUB50oP

zerosquared

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221769#Comment_122221769

Sarcasm 😂

I better add the /s tag last thing we need is more MEPs who help 💩 🕳️ regimes drive millions into Europe

seenitall

Ah ok! I just couldn’t be sure, was really perplexed there for a moment. :D

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221125#Comment_122221125

What was causing the housing crisis prior to the scary demographic changes over the last three years?

Quags

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221848#Comment_122221848

The Government

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221863#Comment_122221863

Indeed, so bad policy right?

Francie Barrett

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221278#Comment_122221278

If you don't understand their intentions, it's because you haven't read Karl Marx.

Marxists demand internationalism and that ordinary people have more in common with each other than their national identity. They envision a future where the state "withers away", leading to a stateless and classless world. They oppose nationalism as they believe it divides the international "working-class".

When you frame everything everything under the Marxist lens, it actually makes perfect sense what they are trying to achieve with migration here.

twinytwo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122221848#Comment_122221848

what is making it worse?.. we can go around and around all day long.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222051#Comment_122222051

Several things, but of course asylum seekers will be ushered to the top of the factors here because — like clockwork— where there is an influx of foreigners then foreigners will be blamed for societal issues where any link can be made, regardless of whether those problems were pre-existent or if there are much more significant factors at play. If the asylum crisis that has unfolded (internationally) since the ending of Covid restrictions and the Ukraine War had never happened, we would still have a housing crisis. And I venture people would then simply be blaming the plain old legal migrants for it anyway.

GetupyeaBowsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222107#Comment_122222107

Our IPA system is been abused Arthur by illegal and some cases trafficked people , pure and simple!
Check the previous pages(on this thread) that tagged multiple conversations about people advising to come to "Southern Ireland or Dublin" to claim IPA/Asylum…

If you can't accept or even possibility think maybe, just maybe our system is currently been abused then I salute you!

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222273#Comment_122222273

It's easy to see why this thread has become an unending roulette of anger and scapegoating when it's pretty clear even by this comment that people are more interested in arguing with phantoms than, you know, what people actually say.

I've never said our asylum system isn't being abused and I have no idea how you've taken what I said as being anything remotely close to an assertion of that.

Fitzy149

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222021#Comment_122222021

"... Marxists demand internationalism and that ordinary people have more in common with each other than their national identity .."

Hmmm .. even if that were (partly) true, we have absolutely nothing in common with the majority of migrants being foisted upon us - if anything, our culture clash is so pronounced, it will only serve to divide, not unite. Take a stroll thru downtown Bradford, Luton on a rainy afternoon - that is your future Ireland .. and when numbers increase, they will call the shots. I would rather leave Europe than cede my freedom to a foreign culture

No, our fault lies with our ruling classes. They are so woefully / wilfully ignorant of what it is to have pride in one's culture, history.

Re our current mess, our first mistake was appointing an Indian-Irishman as head of government (yes, same guy who did a runner after starting the fire. Typical) You could read him like a book. Impulsive, self-serving - no real interest in serving the country who elected him to power.

And for Minister for Justice, we have a petulant, clueless female who can't really do much more to embarrass herself / us

Bad and all as they are, mostly cute hoor gombeen country bumpkins, i Never imagined they would sell the country out from under its people.

That takes a rare breed ..

GetupyeaBowsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222310#Comment_122222310

It's an unending roulette of consistent accusations from all sides here, while I'm pretty sure most people posting on this thread are decent folk.
In my opinion from reading the majority of this thread, most or all anger/frustration is towards our response or lack of it from our government.
The majority of people on this thread are nauseated from pointing out the abuse our current IPA system is enduring while been labelled ridiculous slurs etc…

In the ideal world, immigration/proper border controls and asylum politics should never be a left or right dogfight. Look at Denmark's model, under a left centre government managed to control/deter immigration, cutting immigration by 80%. Some people will never be happy with any solution, we can't please and house every person that arrives at our shores, but a middle ground is needed!

Our government have dropped the ball yet again on another issue, I've absolutely no confidence in their capacity to fix this mess.

twinytwo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222107#Comment_122222107

We would that is obvious. We do not have enough houses for the people we currently have - not by a long shot. The level of immigration into the country has made this worse. You cannot deny this and immigration while not the only factor will be held up as one of the driving factor, because it is.

Immigration does not get a pass just because you feel immigrants are unfairly being targeted.

If your house in on fire you do not keep adding fuel.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222456#Comment_122222456

But who is arguing otherwise? Is there anyone on this thread who thinks our asylum system is not in need of reform or that the crisis that has unfolded since 2022 has not exposed problems, inefficiencies and inadequacies with that system? Is there anyone in government right now who thinks that?

You say look at Denmark. Denmark took in over 30,000 Ukrainians despite having a "zero refugee" policy — and even before that took in about six times as many Syrian refugees as we did in that crisis. They have had experience in handling these situations in ways that we have not. The difference this time was that there was also a major displacement of European people, something we could not avoid the way we avoided Syria — and it coincided with the tail end of the Covid crisis. Our system was overwhelmed, we have struggled to deal with it, and that's it, no matter how much people want to pin it all on Roderic or Helen or the blue haired transgender snowflake next door.

Mistakes have been made but ultimately the world shifted against us and exposed a flaw. Now we have to lift our heads, stop pointing fingers, and find the ways forward.

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222107#Comment_122222107

These are good points though I think we need to separate blaming lax immigration or policy (or lax border control) from blaming "foreigners", "asylum seekers" or "the immigrants".

zell12

I asked if the candidate could explain why on earth the Irish government was continuing to welcome in so many asylum-seekers and refugees in the face of our glaring inability to help them effectively anymore; that the state is splitting and cracking at the seams in the face of ever-increasing demand for accommodation, yet our government inexplicably behaves as if we have an endless well of resources. (I had read some weeks previously that a meeting of the Public Accounts committee was told that more than 5,000 asylum-seekers landed here between January and March - a 75% increase on the 2,900 arrivals here in the same period last year.)

I got no coherent answer to that.

https://www.echolive.ie/corkviews/arid-41409305.html

zell12

—edit

star61

There is a housing shortage, It does not matter when or what date it began. Today there is a housing shortage. Increasing the population will make it worse. This is a fact. It doesn't matter who is to blame. Blaming anyone is pointless. We cannot solve it by bringing in more and more people that we cannot house.There is no point going over the past. That's done.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222729#Comment_122222729

Yes but part of the problem with this line of argument is that it ignores the fact that we also rely on migration to house the 1.5 million Irish people living abroad — not to mention any children they may have abroad. Turf every migrant out and bring the Irish home and you still have a housing crisis. That's not to mention the almost universal demand in this country for easy international travel.

As long as there are outward channels, there are inward channels. You cannot have one without the other, and the inward channels will always be prone to abuse, mismanagement and a lack of perfect control.

And this is why I remain always wary of the politicians and commentators who do nothing but lecture us on the evils of immigration without ever telling us what level of imperfection is immaterial enough to pass their purity test for the perfect migration system. Well, that's until they get into power, as they have done in the UK and Italy, and suddenly find that maybe they didn't have the answers after all.

GetupyeaBowsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222637#Comment_122222637

Our system was overwhelmed, we have struggled to deal with it, and that's it, no matter how much people want to pin it all on Roderic or Helen or the blue haired transgender snowflake next door.




If someone else is mentioning someone's hair color, gender and or the phrase's "snowflake", I'd bring it up that particular poster…

But, you've mentioned 2 public servants currently employed in the highest of powers as minsters.
They've made the decision to public life in Irish politics, both on numerous occasions as acting minsters made some blunders.
Helen's speech towards Sunak regarding illegal AS/IPAs arriving via NI.
Helen ignored many reports of illegal AS/IPAs that were exploiting the NI route into ROI many years ago. The report of a serious sexual offender that arrived as an IPA sometime ago was ignored from her too… I could go on… all the news articles are there to google up..

As for Rodric,
Tusla reports, referendum humiliation and his non existing presence anywhere regarding immigration, I'll just leave it there.

They are both minsters responsible to control and implement polices that require to protect the state's borders, finance and stop any forms of facilitating human trafficking. They're not immune to criticism with how they're currently dealing with this mess.

You say look at Denmark. Denmark took in over 30,000 Ukrainians despite having a "zero refugee" policy — and even before that took in about six times as many Syrian refugees as we did in that crisis


Denmark agreed on a completely different visa for Ukrainians escaping the war. With regards to Syrians escaping the civil war, which was over 10 years ago so this might be before Denmark changed immigration/AS laws, I'm not 100% sure with Syrian Refugees.

I've never once said they've a zero refugee policy. They're a million miles away as Rory would say, on immigration/ asylum policies. Denmark, Ireland and Poland have the same out-clause on migration within EU contracts, we've every right to enact that clause but seem too happy to continue these "obligations".

Would you agree Arthur, some government task force (even done years ago) could request assistance from there Denmark's counterparts and build from their template… The logistics, finance and manpower are available to buff up our system similar towards the Denmark system.
Never advocating for a "zero refugee" policy, it's never possible and I'm happy we take our share but taking in 30k per year off mostly failed IPAs into our country is absolutely insane.

Do you agree with the Danish model on immigration?

picturehangup

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222693#Comment_122222693

I received a visit from a well-known sitting TD yesterday, who was supporting a younger party member in the LE's and posed the very same question as you, zell12. I was quoted that 'We have international obligations'. When I went to argue, hasty retreat to the support group outside our house was made on the pretext that 'they might think she was 'kidnapped'.

If anyone is gullible enough to think that the main parties have any genuine intention of stemming the flow of seamless immigration, then they need their head examined. There will be no change, we will be like UK, Brussels and other spots unless people take action at the polling station. It really is as simple as that.

iamwhoiam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222729#Comment_122222729

yes exactly . It was already a problem that needs fixing asap . It certainly wont be fixed by allowing financial migrants in . We need to solve our housing issues before we even think about trying to house any more people

I always compare issues like this to a simple example . If I have a three bedroom home and have 5/6 children to feed and clothe and have enough beds for them I have to prioritise them first

I cant offer a bed to another 10 or 20 people because it’s impossible then to ensure that everyone is comfortable and I would be compromising my own childrens comforts .

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122222656#Comment_122222656

Spain has resorted to letting the Brits know directly that they are not welcome, simply because their government is ignoring them.

star61

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122223201#Comment_122223201

I do not see how this can be relevant. Today … The Present …. no matter who comes here …. we have no houses. If the Irish who are abroad, already have houses here or if they have family here who can house them, well then they are fine. But for anyone else. We do not have housing. The latest Eurostat figures showed 68% of Irish adults aged between 25 and 29 were still living at home in 2022. We do not have housing / affordable housing for those who are already living here - Irish or otherwise. Saying we cannot have outward unless we have inward still changes nothing. Saying we all want EASY international travel changes nothing. Right now we cannot even house who is here. We have to come up with a plan for the future.