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

Headshot

Isnt this some horrible sight

https://gript.ie/a-walk-along-dublins-grand-canal-which-is-currently-encased-in-fencing/

Soon enough more places in Dublin will be getting this treatment, when you're not stopping the influx, it's going to get worse and more fencing will be required.

Hell I should put my tent selling business to aside and start manufacturing and selling fencing, that's where the money will be going next

DebDynamite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122243778#Comment_122243778

Wow, the fencing is actually going all the way down to the bridge at Harold’s Cross - thought it was only the Baggot St area. So sad to see.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122243176#Comment_122243176

Where is the pivot?

I've always said that asylum seekers / refugees form part of the demand for housing but that they also represent a fairly small cohort in the grand scheme of things, even within the foreign born population where the vast majority are regular visa / EU migrants. They certainly aren't a cause of the housing crisis, which pre-dates 2022 and their evaporation into thin air in the morning would not cause a drop in demand that would be anywhere near material enough. As things stand, they simply aren't for example a major source of competition for young Irish people to buy a home — whereas migrant workers with decent salaries might be, but that's within a wider context that migrants are statistically far less likely to be active in the housebuying market than Irish people.

titan18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122243672#Comment_122243672

Not even sure I'd blame the government as they've just been told it's all ok by the electorate.

batman_oh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122243778#Comment_122243778

All we need to do to solve this according to our betters is provide free houses for life for the 600 randoms arriving a week, the majority with bogus asylum claims (by our governments own admission). I mean why would anybody have an issue with that.

Vote4Squirrels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244393#Comment_122244393

Because they're all poor downtrodden engineers and surgeons who are fleeing persecution with nothing but the rags on the back and the latest Balenciaga runners and we're all far right bigots and LITERALLY HITLER ???

/sarcasm

Repro212

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244393#Comment_122244393

No issue at all Batman, provided those houses are going to be big enough for the large extended families that follow and enough land is allocated for suitable places of worship across each county.

/more sarcasm

Jack Daw

From today's Irish Independent , " Editorial: Far right has risen but democracy in Europe will prevail once we stand united"

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/editorial/editorial-far-right-has-risen-but-democracy-in-europe-will-prevail-once-we-stand-united/a1991172569.html

So we have had a series of election across europe and because these elections failed to return the results our betters in the mainstream media wanted now all of a sudden democracy is under threat.Election results are an example of democracy in action.It's amazing the contempt the mainstream media has for the average person.

The more the media does this and labels legitimate concerns as extremist views the more they'll push people to voting for non-mainstream parties , the media and and politicians across europe have enabled the so called "far right".

zerosquared

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244500#Comment_122244500

on the bright side at least that is something they can fund on their own

https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2020/09/30/Qatar-plays-major-role-in-funding-European-Muslim-Brotherhood-groups-Report

Edit: I am being sarcastic of course in case people miss the sarcasm in my post

Patrick2010

Are the 100 new tents being occupied by new arrivals or ones who made it back from Crookslink?

Jizique

Fitzwilliam Place at Leeson Street Bridge is a sewer

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244009#Comment_122244009

They are and will be competing with young Irish people in the rental market. And that's where the battle lines lie these days. Many young people inc our own haven't a hope of buying a house at the moment and should be able to rent at reasonable cost in areas close to work & study etc. But can't and know it and resent it.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122243058#Comment_122243058

And that 'build more' answer is shared remarkably widely among those who defend and even promote Ireland as an immigration state. It's real head stuck in the sand thinking.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122242256#Comment_122242256

Our house is full, bedrooms or boxrooms as Simon likes to call them, occupied with adult children who can't afford rentals. Rental costs that have rocketed due to rapidly increasing demands on it, fuelled by both legal immigration and asylum seekers/ refugees, landlords getting €800 min for a room tax free etc etc. That's one of the self serving reasons why I'm opposed to the current situation and it's a bloody good reason.

So how about your place, how are you fixed. Since you and others think it's a great idea to have all these people rock up and get their papers, will you find space for them? That's a very fair question.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244582#Comment_122244582

Your major problem is with "legal" immigration into the country, including EU citizens then? Refugees or asylum seekers aren't part of the accommodation rental process

Blind As A Bat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122243778#Comment_122243778

"more fencing will be required"

Waterways Ireland are worried about the impact on the canal of the lack of sanitation facilities but obviously they also want to see the fencing gone.

"A spokesperson said it is continuing to work with multi-agency partners in the best interests of all concerned and will consult with agency partners and local residents regarding the replacement of the temporary fencing with ecologically sensitive landscaping solutions appropriate to the canal corridor and surrounding cityscapes.

“This is a very dynamic and sensitive situation and a timeline for completion of these landscaping works is not currently available,” they added."

To save the canal both ecologically and as an amenity there will have to be an acknowledgement on the part of the government that this is a permanent situation and the landscaping of the area will have to change in response. I suppose some sort of hedging or planting to prevent people camping with just space for a few benches??

DebDynamite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244858#Comment_122244858

Lovely. The landscape of the canal changed forever to try and keep these campsites out. I used to live and work around the canal for nearly 20 years and there was always something so beautiful about it. Lovely to sit on the grassy bank on a summers day. Really sad to see.

Lotus Flower

So that’s the long term plan then, just keep adding eye sore fencing everywhere rather than do anything to reduce the unsustainable numbers coming in

techdiver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244028#Comment_122244028

This. The result is essentially a thumbs up from the electorate to the government that they are doing a good job. The only party to be "punished" by their base was SF. Essentially the demographic that votes FF/FG are not effected by immigration or housing as they are the older generation who are comfortable and have no such worries.

SF's working class vote has jumped to the various fringe parties and independents which will effect no change as neither them nor SF will have any power. I think it shows that SF have failed to read the room as regards their position on a number of issues as it pertains to their base voter.

Ironically for young people heavily impacted by housing etc they tend to vote for more far left parties and candidates that not only want to continue our free for all approach to immigration but add to it. As much as I despise FF/FG at least Ireland still has a relatively centrist majority. I would like a new centrist alternative to these parties but that seems like a pipe dream.

The far right and far left still haven't gotten a foot hold in Ireland which is good. My concern seems to be with many twitter accounts that were espousing the dangers of far right candidates openly encouraging people to vote for "far left" candidates (the words used). Seems that history is not being thought well in our school system if these young people think the solution to the dangers of the far right is to vote for the far left. Far left ideology has never gone wrong before has it?

It's all quite depressing that the polarisation of politics is spreading like wildfire. You've seen it in America and now you are seeing it in Europe. At the end of the day the attitude of the ruling class and the media has lead to the rise of the far right. Just look at the media articles and tweets admonishing people who voted for such candidates instead of actually looking into why so many people who would have voted for centrist parties in the past are now gravitating to the right. They are too busy soap boxing their moral and intellectual superiority to look at the causes and try to come up with solutions.

prunudo

So seems the machines have moved into Clonmel, shame to see the lack of people protesting this, but after the election I shouldn't really be surprised either.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244733#Comment_122244733

Yes they are and will increasingly be. We already see war refugees being encouraged to leave state provided accommodation and seek their own in the private sector. The state will hand over €800 tax free a month for a room to help them. We have asylum applicants given their papers and leaving to look for rentals likewise. Then we have what is an unquantified and undocumented immigration problem, those who have come in, ignored the authorities and working away, start staying with friends etc. then compete in rental sector.

Now address this please. Not good enough to pretend there are no knock on effects on the rental market.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244028#Comment_122244028

I dunno about that - the winds of change are a blowin. The vote for Independents is well up and FF/FG can waffle all they like over who has the biggest d**k but they know too that there is deep dissatisfaction and it'll blow their way as well.

Look hard at what is happening in France & Germany.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244965#Comment_122244965

I don't hold much hope but it would be nice if the people behind these protests etc see now they don't have national support and we could stop wasting scarce AGS resources on these 'peaceful' demonstrations and arson attacks.

Lotus Flower

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122242563#Comment_122242563

I do enjoy your posts I’ve seen on here and I think you make some great points. I don’t know if I would take people not starting threads on an issue as proof that they don’t care though. Besides some people are only realising recently just how bad things are. I suppose uncontrolled mass immigration and men in tents on the streets of Dublin is bringing some of those issues to light

Furze99

Now we have this :( https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2024/0611/1454145-ecj-refugee-status/

"The European Court of Justice has ruled that refugee status may be granted to female asylum seekers who have, over time, adopted the values of equality between men and women in their EU host countries.

The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the granting of refugee status where female applicants in particular are at risk of persecution in their home countries."

Just which tail is wagging the dog here?? This could be devastating for the survival of European culture, flood EU states with any woman who claims persecution in their own country of birth, to then invite over their relatives and so on.

Someone will have to stop this rot.

Blind As A Bat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244895#Comment_122244895

I used to work in that area as well. Always used to think of Patrick Kavanagh, We may have to change the words of 'On Raglan Road soon' ……… there's a tradition in Irish music of giving new words to old tunes. After all Kavanagh put his words to the tune of Fáinne Geal an Lae -

'On Raglan Road, on a summer's day

I saw the tents and knew ……….'

Anybody care to finish the stanza?

Tenzor07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122245169#Comment_122245169

Change will have to come from Europe, where a move to the right will drive change to the EU's immigration policy which was set up decades ago for a very different Europe.

The loss of seats for the European Green parties shows that people want Net Zero immigration not any other Net Zero..

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122244633#Comment_122244633

Aw here we go — another session of shoving words into my mouth. Firstly, I don't think it's a "great idea" to have refugees / asylum seekers "rock up and get their papers". I've never said anything of the sort. It is simply the outcome of a global geopolitical reality that we have to find ways to manage and control as best we can — and most often is a pretty negative thing.

To your other point, I live in a tiny one bedroom flat with my girlfriend as we save up for a deposit. But I'm not going to hide behind that — even if I had the space I'd be very reluctant to take anyone into my home. But judging the integrity of people's views on other people by a measure of "would you take them into your own home" is a cynical moral threshold that practically nobody could consistently attain. I watch the Derek Blighe-types on Twitter asking people this as if it were the biggest hole-in-one 'GOTCHA!!' of all time. They don't of course apply this same moral integrity threshold to themselves as regards the people they claim to champion and be terribly concerned about — the young Irish people stuck in financial limbo or indeed the Irish people on the streets or in crap temporary lodgings somewhere.

Privacy and the quiet enjoyment of your property is a thing in life. If someone advocates compassion for the homeless, I'm not going to call them a hypocrite for simultaneously not wishing to take a random homeless person into their own home. So I don't know why you're throwing that moral standard at me as if I'm throwing it at anyone else.

prunudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122245184#Comment_122245184

Ah yes, you'd prefer people who you don't agree with to be out of sight, out of mind. But I hate to break it to you, these protesters do have support from around the nation. There are plenty of people on their side. Just because they're aren't in a majority, doesn't mean that their opinions or views should be brushed away.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122245333#Comment_122245333

Yah fair enough. But if an argument is consistently advanced that the state must live up to it's supposed international obligations and that we must accept anyone who arrives on our fair shores, then the proposers of that argument must accept the consequences and the challenges of how we accommodate, feed, employ, service, pay these people.

I've stated that I have self serving reasons why I'm opposed to the current situation and they are very good reasons. It affects us as a family and it has affected my business. Just like it has affected many voters who turned away from political parties who propose the laissez faire arguments you propose.

So if you or others are going to defend the government policies and actions, then it's up to you and others to give sensible solutions.