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

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120184206#Comment_120184206

Extremely smart and innovative people, they will adapt through technological solutions

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120184977#Comment_120184977

I mean these are good hypotheses and all, but unless the EU/Ireland commissions an actual investigation to confirm and determine how the hell anyone could have got on without a passport, it's all our speculation, IDK how easy or difficult getting to a connecting flight is in an airport here or there or there or what customs steps are on the way

Hamachi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185030#Comment_120185030

Indeed they are. I’ve no doubt the Japanese will innovate their way out of their demographic issues.

Furthermore, they are starting to get serious about the low fertility rate. They plan to implement a new raft of measures this year to encourage younger people to focus on family formation. Ultimately, their goal is to drive up the fertility rate to 1.8, a rate that Ireland exceeded in the first two QRs of 2022.

LeoB

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120180943#Comment_120180943

Not quite. If the USA want they could empty the states of illegal Irish tomorrow morning. Yes a lot who went in the 70s and 80s were fleeing joblessness but as pointed out there were no handouts, no freebies JUST VERY HARD WORK. Here in Ireland its different. They demand and they receive. A warm bed, food, allowance and free legal aid to challenge deportation orders. If you cant see the difference you just dont want to see it.

As I have said on many occassions I welcome people here who will contribute to society. I have benefited from surgery twice in last where 90% of staff were immigrants and great assets to our country. They went through a process and passed. Our shops and hospitality would collapse without migrant workers. Yet we just allow scammers with London accents claim asylum!

The problem I see going forward is how we will keep these people? Pensions etc? Will our minister do a Michael Noonan and raid pension funds people have worked for?

Our ridiculous approach to immigration and our open border policy is feeding into a growing far right movement and will ultimately lead to serious unrest.

UsBus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120183381#Comment_120183381

100%.

Heard this on Matt Cooper. They basically tried to sum up the whole narrative of protests around this one text as racists believing the asylum seekers were plants. Not one text read out as you say around people worried about housing, health overcrowding. Pathetic from Cooper, the media are straying blindly away from what people are genuinely concerned about. Seems to be one big propaganda campaign from government and media outlets as the EU have instructed them to enforce migration at all costs.

maebee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185036#Comment_120185036

I think you're missing something here OH. They don't get on a flight in the EU without a passport. Frequently the passport gets ripped up or burned on the flight to Ireland and ends up in the "Rubbish please" bag of the Ryanair/Aer Lingus Flight Attendant's bag.

LeoB

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120179894#Comment_120179894

Specifically the Garda and the state do have the resources to put down any riots that could take place. We have a very well trained army who could quite easiily support the Gardai. However Veradkar and Martin wouldnt look good to EU masters.

hotmail.com

The scale of the protests are unprecedented.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185126#Comment_120185126

That would never work in the US - the passenger manifest, the US Customs logs, booth photography, everyone on board the plane could be identified who boarded the plane. Why can't the EU?

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185104#Comment_120185104

Who cares what that woke Wally Matt cooper thinks?, guys a total ham

rossie1977

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120184206#Comment_120184206

Japan is dying a slow death as are China and Italy among others.

Nosler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185550#Comment_120185550

Why is Japan dying a "slow death"?

One minute politicians are telling us that we have to change our behaviour because of climate change etc. Then the next minute the politicians are opening the floodgates to immigration. I just dont see any point trying to reduce the amount I fly or drive when Irish politicians are allowing thousands of people in each week.

Japan is being responsible by slowly reducing their population.

Anyway, Ireland is a wealthy developed country. There is absolutely no reason that Ireland needs immigrants that dont speak English or have any useful skills.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/01/31/shortage-of-beds-for-refugees-could-hit-19000-by-end-of-march-cabinet-subcommittee-hears/

19000 potentially with no where to go by the end March.

Zico

We should offer to take in say 10 productive refugees in exchange for one unproductive person.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185550#Comment_120185550

and immigration is definitely one way of helping with that issue, but it needs to be the right kind of immigration. If you take in people who are dependent on the state you are just adding to the problems you already have which is an increasing population of people not working (retirees).

maccored

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185566#Comment_120185566

population growth worldwide is declining due to an abrupt decline in fertility rates. we wont have an over population problem moreso than an under population one at some stage in the future

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185587#Comment_120185587

This government got us into this mess. Let's see how they deal with it.

Sinn Fein of course have no answers.

Economics101

Interesting letter in to-day's I.T. Makes much the same point as I tried to earlier. Surprised they printed it and I can anticipate some outraged reaction.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2023/02/01/ducking-the-debate-on-asylum-policy/

Luxembourgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185591#Comment_120185591

Isn't that what VISAs are for?

Marcos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120184977#Comment_120184977

And carriers for flights within the EU have to comply with the Advanced Passenger Information (API) Directive of 2004 which requires currently carriers to forward passenger information onto the relevant authorities by request. Ireland is taking part in this:

"(16) Ireland is taking part in this Directive in accordance with Article 5 of the Protocol integrating the Schengen acquis into the framework of the European Union annexed to the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, and Article 6(2) of Council Decision 2002/192/EC of 28 February 2002 concerning Ireland's request to take part in some of the provisions of the Schengen acquis"

So there is no reason that passengers can't be identified under this directive, unless the relevant authorities don't request API from the carriers. I'll leave it open to others to decide if that is the case in Ireland and why.

The EU Commission is looking to address this loophole by repealing the directive and ensuring that API rules are processed evenly within the EU i.e. sent to the authorities whether they request it or not. The Commission is currently requesting feedback from members of the public on this rule change.

lmimmfn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120186210#Comment_120186210

Very surprised they printed it, i thought it was very good, hopefully more of that to come in the media.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120182873#Comment_120182873

Interesting that other countries can flout the law. I think we absolutely need to have a limit. There are 10s of millions of people who want to live in the West. We are a soft touch and there is no way we can take everyone who rocks up. International law will have to be renegotiated. That would need politicians who are prepared to stand up and negotiate the best deal for the country. So I am pessimistic about this happening.

rgossip30

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120172778#Comment_120172778

I seem to remember seeing a report that 50 % of social houses in Dubin were in rent arrears .Migrants contribute to the problem and rising cost of rent and property demand and supply .In the mid70's Ireland was second in the world for owner occupied houses.

jmayo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120186210#Comment_120186210

Maybe "the Times they are a changin"

Can't believe a rational letter like that was printed.

A number of months back the writer would have been labelled a brown shirt and a member of the SA.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166717#Comment_120166717

Did you know there are 40 to 50 countries that never did.

Funny thing is most of them are places, not at war at all, that we seem to be quite willing to take people from.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120166778#Comment_120166778

Yes we can. Lots of countries do it all the time and the sky doesn't fall in on them.

Sallywag37

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120186210#Comment_120186210

That's a very moderate and measured letter and it says a lot about where we're at that it's surprising it was printed and that it'll doubtless be met with howls of outrage. When Aodhán O Riordain was asked recently if he'd met with the residents of the Lighthouse Apartments in East Wall his response was "Why would I?" That, to me, really says it all.

These residents have suddenly and without warning had 400 young men landed just yards from their front door and now have to keep their children indoors and negotiate their way past police cars and ambulances every night and puddles of blood on their way out to school in the mornings - and the response from a public representative, paid from the public purse, to hearing their concerns is "Why would I?" These kind of responses are beneath the publics contempt. If our politicians are in fact concerned about the rise of the far right they might want to think about closing the goal they've left wide fcuking open for them.

batman_oh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120186210#Comment_120186210

Sweden is a literal live case study of where this leftie arrogance/shutting down debate and ploughing ahead with this policy leads. Liberal heaven into out of control gang violence/no go areas/gun crime capital of Europe in a few years. But none of them will ever even acknowledge this. Fingers in the ears and shout far right and it'll all work out.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120187139#Comment_120187139

If our politicians are in fact concerned about the rise of the far right they might want to think about closing the goal they've left wide fcuking open for them.

They're not genuinely concerned; it's just a convenient bogeyman. The only thing that would genuinely worried is if the 'far right' started making serious electoral inroads and there's no sign of that so far. Protests, vigilanteism etc. can be dealt with by the guards...

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120187296#Comment_120187296

The rampant and blatant misinformation whipping the weak minded into a frenzy is concerning though.

https://www.thejournal.ie/appeal-alleged-assault-finglas-5984799-Feb2023/

slay55

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120188220#Comment_120188220

Agreed, Garda are not trustworthy

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120188220#Comment_120188220

Why in the world haven't the linked the claims made? Surely it can't be hard. I wonder, because I don't remember seeing the associating being made, yet the whole articles exists to debunk the source of the association, yet they haven't linked an example of people making those claims? It's basic journalism to show your work.

enricoh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185587#Comment_120185587

Saw there was a 'refugees welcome' meeting in fermoy recently. Probably the guts of a hundred people at it. Say everyone at it that works for an NGO gets 4 refugees n the rest of the people there get 2. Let them put their money where their mouth is!

Bobtheman

We need a reformed refugee policy pure and simple. I really can't see why that can't happen.

At present we have no room and our system is lax.

To say the above is not racist.

To not engage with people and explain our current system is to treat voters with contempt.

To simply say we have to follow international obligations is total bullshit as different countries have different systems and rejection rates

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185566#Comment_120185566

Japan, along with South Korea are the canaries in the coalmine with regard to an ageing population.

1 in 3 of the population in Japan are already seniors. Last year, South Korea posted the lowest birthrate of any country ever (0.8).

How they handle the decline will be fascinating to watch. They're rapidly hurtling towards 1 worker for every pensioner. How exactly that works is an open question, but it's unlikely to be pretty.

Hungry Burger

We do not have an unbiased media in this country, they don’t even bother with the pretence of being balanced nowadays. Just the government line on everything.

Nosler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120189594#Comment_120189594

OK, even if you accept that an ageing population is a bad thing. Do you think that bringing in people that dont speak Japanese or have any skills is the solution?

In Ireland we're told "we need immigrants to pay tax and pensions of native irish". However you walk about Dublin and see the Roma beggars and the asylum seekers hanging about. They can't survive without help from the Irish taxpayer, never mind "paying our pensions".

Again, the whole debate around immigration is basically complete lies.

DebDynamite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120188220#Comment_120188220

Completely agree. It’s a sad state of affairs when The Irish Times, the paper of record, have to resort to making up stories to spin their narrative. Journalism has gone to the dogs in this country.

https://gript.ie/when-fake-news-becomes-morally-right/

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120189960#Comment_120189960

We go the way of Japan in and we could have perhaps a million and a half workers trying to support four million people living on social welfare (which would be a bit ironic seeing how the anti-immigration guys seems to hate anyone living on benefits).

Cody montana

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185877#Comment_120185877

Good

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120189960#Comment_120189960

They already do. If you go into a convenience store in Tokyo or Osaka, you're quite likely to get served by a Nepalese or Filipino person. And hold on to your hat here, they speak Japanese.

Their factories and agricultural sectors have a lot of Brazilians. They generally send them packing after about three or so years, whereupon they have to spend money recruiting and retraining (expensive and terrible for productivity in the automotive and shipbuilding sectors particularly).

If you're university educated and can navigate (or tolerate) the bullsh*t of the Japanese office culture, there's plenty of white collar work to be had there. Pay and conditions tend to be poor compared to Europe (the entire country hasn't had a pay rise for about two decades), although it's stable.

Japan if it got its head screwed on, desparately needs immigrants. But it would rather die as a nation than swallow that someone not "of the bloodline" can settle and become Japanese. Hell, even third generation Korean-Japanese or Chinese-Japanese tend to keep their ethnic background secret because of discrimination.

It's their hill to die on, and come 2050 or 2060, they probably will.

thomas 123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185877#Comment_120185877

Sure at some stage in the future the sun will die.

Right now, and likely for the next 50 years, Irelands population is going to grow.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_Ireland_since_1600.png - The only thing that set us back was the famine.

I think the Gov are thrilled filling the country up with anyone they can as they feel this is the solve for the pension time bomb. Obviously thats not much good if we are filled up with folks who cant speak english, who are happy to live 20 to a house, and claim benefits to live a very comfortable life compared to where they came from.

Migration and helping folks out(Refugees and genuine asylum seekers) is grand, but not when the country is literally falling apart at the seams.

hotmail.com

At least in Britain, you have a chance of being housed in Rwanda - what's Ireland doing - putting refugees onto the streets.

This will add to the current communal disquiet about refugees in the country.

Yurt2

As an aside, the only immigrants I've really come across that struggle with English after any particular length of time are kitchen workers in places like Chinese restaurants who day-in day-out are among their language group. That's a very small minority of our immigration, and they're engaged in productive employment so who gives a sh*t?

It's the world's most spoken second language and you'd want to be running away from it not to learn it to at least a functional level here. If we're ranking problems with immigration, immigrants not learning English is very very low down the list.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120190008#Comment_120190008

I'm going to put my neck out here and am going to say that a hell of a lot of the protestors that have been whipped into a frenzy in various communities are recepients of welfare of some form or another, and the unspoken thing is their place on the housing list. I've no objections to them wanting their council house, but let's not pretend they're the men and women of Easter '16. They think immigrants are interfering with the honey pot they've been holding out for all these years.

minimary

The situation in the US seems to be at breaking point too. In NY they were housing refugees in hotels and now that they're moving them to less nice acommodation the refugees are protesting.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64475732

Surely its time the UN refugee convention was redrafted for current times so it doesn't get to a situation where countries do insist on a zero refugee policy.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120190199#Comment_120190199

A good chunk of them on the council waiting list or else their daughter is.

You have the same politicians wanting large social housing developments for these people.

Paul Murphy will be championing these people next week on housing.

Jack Daw

Why does the notion that is constantly put out that "Modern Ireland was built by immigrants" or "without immigration we wouldn't have had the celtic Tiger" continually go unchallenged.

Ireland made it's great leap forward starting in the early to mid 1990's at that stage the only immigrant population of any decent scale here were people from the UK.

The massive improvement in Irish society from the 1990's onwards has nothing to do with immigration simple as that.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120190227#Comment_120190227

I have literally never heard anyone say those two things you have in quotation marks.

There can be little doubt that immigration has had an overwhelmingly positive effect on national productivity. Immigration is not without its downsides, but the type of immigration patterns we have experienced from both inside and outside the EU has in aggregate been economically and socially positive for the country.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120190227#Comment_120190227

But not a shred of evidence that immigration ever harmed the economy, correct? Financial crash of 2008-12 was caused by Irish banks and property developers.

Current economy has been booming for the last 12+ months, despite "open borders" and "out of control mass immigration".

Sallywag37

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120190199#Comment_120190199

Maybe you should listen to the interviews of the people living in the Light House apartments, many of whom are immigrants themselves. Those interviews were left to Gript Media since not one mainstream media outlet in the country would talk to them. Some of them are paying full market rent and others mortgages. One immigrant couple had been intending to sell up and buy a larger apartment as the woman was pregnant; their home is now unmarketable. Who's going to buy an apartment at the centre of a media storm because four hundred young men are living yards away across a small courtyard in a building designed as an office block, with Garda and ambulance activity outside every night of the week? The lives of 150 families have been turned upside down overnight and no, it has nothing to do with chasing a "honey pot"; it has to do with wanting a return to some semblance of safety and normality, where they can let their children play in the courtyard and their teenaged daughters walk to school without getting sexually harassed in broad daylight.

Luxembourgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120190008#Comment_120190008

Again there are different types of immigration.

We also have a very progressive tax system so most low wage jobs, that we are told immigrants fill, pay very little tax (and likely have a net cost).

Six years ago almost a third of housing lists in Dublin were foreign born. This has likely increased as our foreign born population has. So we are importing social welfare recipients.

Refugees are not paying our pensions