Immigration to Ireland - policies, challenges, and solutions *Read OP before posting*

zell12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791806#Comment_121791806

So, folk arrive in airport, can't/won't get accommodation, then present as homeless?

batman_oh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791806#Comment_121791806

We really should be trying to build houses for everybody that does this. And make sure it's all paid for by welfare. Sure why not like

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791806#Comment_121791806

If housing policies were better, they wouldn't need to sleep on the streets.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791843#Comment_121791843

Well yeah, it stands to reason that at at a time where there is an enormous and unprecedented spike in refugees you are going to see a spike in acceptances or grants of leave to remain. I'm not telling you it's right, or proper, or fair, or that you shouldn't spend the rest of your life convincing yourself that you don't live in a good country because the migrant apocalypse is always just around the corner, but I'm telling you that physically and mathematically that is the outcome of an enormous spike.

Let's look at our good friends in the UK, fresh off a few years of having fear-the-immigrants types running their Home Office. In 2022, 80% of people held in immigration detention centres were given leave to remain in the UK. 80%.

Now what might be the reason for that?

Sunny Disposition

That video is very flawed.

She says that there is no affordable housing being built or no social housing being delivered (5:47). That's simply wrong, a social housing development opened two miles from my own house last week. The Minister for Housing was there. Another one even closer opened in 2023. When such basic mistakes are made a commentator can't be taken seriously. Besides the basic errors, there is a lot of ideologically motivated statements included, such as the dismissal of institutional investment in property.

I think the ideological bias shows through as well in what is not included, it is incredible that someone can claim they are probing Ireland's housing crisis while making almost no mention of the amount of immigration over the last 20 years. Or the fact that the Government cannot control the amount of people arriving here.

RoyalCelt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791892#Comment_121791892

The acceptance rate from Georgia and other safe countries should have been almost zero.

You know if 5 million refugees found their way to Ireland under current international law we'd have to accept most of them. The laws are broken.

Do your research on why Denmark a country similar in size now has a zero refugee policy and even offer current refugees and immigrants financial incentives to emigrate elsewhere.

To make things worse for us accepting people who are not genuine refugees, they are taking up hotel rooms and causing a large social strain both financially and in terms of services.

RoyalCelt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791890#Comment_121791890

If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. This government are incapable of doing a good job. And it won't be changing either.

Sunny Disposition

Realistically policies on immigration have been the most important housing-related policies for the last 20 years.

Unfortunately there was a huge and entirely predictable cop-out from various parties on the issue. Finally and belatedly it is being discussed.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791713#Comment_121791713

"If you accept the Government aren't in control of immigration and that there is a high level of immigration, I don't see how you can blame them for a housing crisis."

I'd consider them to blame because they've been aware of immigration for the last decade and haven't taken any measures to increase the supply of housing.

The war in Ukraine is something that couldn't have been foreseen, but long before that it's clear there was need to take measures to increase supply and they didn't.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791925#Comment_121791925

Denmark — the zero refugee country that has taken in 30,000 refugees.

So Ireland, the UK and Denmark — all three have spontaneously seen spikes in various figures pertainining to asylum since circa 2022. What a coincidence. It's almost like something major must have happened to cause this that wasn't a purely out-of-the-blue domestic decision based on longstanding business-as-usual policy. But I'll take your advice and "do my research" into what this major event might have been.

In all seriousness though, Ireland traditionally had low refusal rates for asylum seekers before the Ukraine War — which logically speaking would reflect the fact that it hasn't tended to be a big issue here nor have we ever encountered a genuinely high spike in refugees. Ukraine War begins >> huge spike in numbers >> our system, unaccustomed to it, is overstretched, and numbers become elevated across the board.

Now that we have experienced it, there is an opportunity to review what we do, how we do it and how to make the system work better for us and for genuine asylum seekers. A war broke out in Europe — life isn't fair sometimes — sometimes things happen in the world that have detrimental consequences for Ireland. Let's all stop crying about it and think of realistic ways forward, and stop with the whingefest and pines for magic bullet solutions.

tom23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791635#Comment_121791635

It's also obvious that successive governments have been useless at managing this country.

The only thing you have ever said on this thread that I can completely agree with.

enricoh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792044#Comment_121792044

Realistic ways forward.

Step 1: welfare payments to all ukranians dropped to the same amount as asylum seekers. There's probably 50k packing up heading home n tourism gets a chance to survive.

tom23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792186#Comment_121792186

Personally I thing thats a reasonable suggestions. Id would give at least 3/6 months lead in time to allow them to make proper preparation.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792186#Comment_121792186

Isn't this already being done? As far as I understood, welfare payments for Ukrainian refugees being housed by the State are to be decreased pretty heavily from €220 a week to €38.80 a week.

Sunny Disposition

There have been a heap of measures to stimulate property since Covid, don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

Payments for first time buyers, a shared equity scheme, numerous social and affordable housing developments. Over 30,000 units built last year, probably more than that in 2024.

Construction is scaling up, probably not fast enough, but realistically that's impossible. And it's impossible to meet demand, or even know what medium term demand will be, because immigration cannot be controlled.

You can criticise the Government all you want, I have, and they are useless, but there is no way they can know how many houses will be required given that putting any ceiling on immigration is impossible.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792044#Comment_121792044

Neither does Denmark simply refuse to take people in.

They've resorted to indefinite detention for those they can't deport. A path all of these attempts to harden borders seem to lead to.

I think the UK has a similar policy of offering cash for people to leave. I'd certainly suggest some form of travel voucher as it would allow us to have a good idea of who has left without unnecessarily burdening AGS, or creating much in the line of bureaucracy.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792258#Comment_121792258

I don't think this is true at all. You absolutely can formulate a model for projected population growth. We also have 1.5 million born in Ireland but living abroad — so migration is a two way street when it comes to thinking about how it affects population. As a small island nation, with relatively high levels of education and personal wealth, emigration (both permanent and temporary) is likely to always be a prominent feature of our migration statistics. So if you're saying that planning can't be done because of immigration affecting population levels, you also have to bear in mind that we are still probably not really a million miles off the numbers we would have if our entire Ireland born population was here.

The problem as well however is that it isn't just really an issue of population growth in itself, but also an issue of the failure to adequately plan for the urbanisation of Ireland through the development of a healthier rental economy for younger people and international workers in Dublin — as well as the glacial pace of infrastructural development to make Dublin a more joined-up, accessible urban area (and indeed, Ireland more accessible as a whole). As is often pointed out, our price of property versus our population density just doesn't stack up to an argument that population growth is the real issue.

enricoh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792254#Comment_121792254

That's for new arrivals. Also that e38 is for the first 90 days whereby the state houses them, then they revert to full dole n no state support for housing iirc.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792344#Comment_121792344

I think part of the problem is that there is a tendency in Europe, among voters and politicians, to look at this in far too insular a manner.

Brexit was the best demonstration yet that there is a general slowness to recognise that "[Country X] First" and go-it-alone policies in Europe now face the problem that individual European nations no longer have the muscle to shape the world to their liking. It is abundantly clear that Brexit Britain's immigration issues are still fundamentally interconnected with and reliant on the rest of Europe.

That's why I think that individual domestic policies — rejections, removals, asylum centres, welfare cuts etc etc — are all limited in what they can achieve. You need the pooled power of Europe working together to strengthen the external borders and formulate cohesive mutually beneficial agreements with neighbouring countries to actually have a functioning system of rejection in the first instance that actually works and ends with rejected applicants being removed efficiently or never crossing the borders at all.

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791914#Comment_121791914

You cannot be serious? They literally sold off hundreds of thousands of state owned properties and then build a handful of new ones here and there? Do you not see how that couldn't possibly work?

you put no blame on the government at all, just immigration? How did we have housing crisis in the 30s? 50s? 60s? When people were leaving the country in droves

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792258#Comment_121792258

A criticism often levelled at this government, and one I'd certainly subscribe to, is that their stimulus measures around housing have all been on the demand side and have only functioned to drive up prices.

Depending on who you talk to the biggest obstacle to building more houses is either labour shortages or shortages of zoned land at affordable prices.

Either of those could have been tackled, but hasn't been in any meaningful way.

We were building circa 90k houses during the boom, we're down now to circa 30k and it seems our capacity won't go much further without change.

Even if there was no immigration we'd need to increase construction capacity. Immigration has meant we've reached this point quicker but I don't think it could be seen as a cause imho.

Of course it's painful and wrong that we're spending billions on temporary accommodation rather than on increasing our capacity to build houses. Again, imho, it would be equally wrong to waste billions on trying to 'harden our borders' rather than increasing our capacity to build houses.

I do think it's worth looking at capping visa immigration for non-essential roles until we get on top of housing, as it's something that might actually be achievable.

Sunny Disposition

I’m quite serious in my post.

The video is full of bs, no one should take it seriously when she said there is no social or affordable housing delivery. That is untrue.

The Governments approach to immigration is the housing-related policy I’d criticise them most for. When it is so easy for so many to come here there is always a risk of a housing shortage when the economy is strong. They need to find ways to reduce immigration rather than encourage it.

its fashionable to blame the Government for the issues around housing, but there is very little they can do to plan accurately for the long term given how many people can easily immigrate here.

The Cameron Government found out how powerless it was over immigration when it promised to reduce arrivals to tens of thousands. When it became clear that couldn’t be guaranteed within the EU, the writing was on the wall.

Ireland has the same issue, it can’t limit immigration or plan for an amount of migrants over the next five years.

People mightn’t like that, but it is the truth. What the Government can do is lobby internationally for a more sensible European approach. And it might find some favour.

Blaming everything on Government is fashionable, easy and sometimes justified. But there is no point blaming it for not being able to house a rising population when it has no way of knowing how much the increase is going to be.

Thats just childish.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792705#Comment_121792705

The government itself no longer delivers social or affordable housing.

It buys houses (either directly or by subcontracting), which would otherwise be available for private buyers, and uses them for these purposes.

In previous generations councils went out and build social and affordable houses themselves, largely using their own labor.

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792705#Comment_121792705

Childish😂

You're ignoring a hundred different reasons why there is a housing crisis in this country because you just want to blame immigrants. Now that's childish!

Even the most anti immigrant person can see that government policies have failed the population. Just because they don't know how many immigrants will come, they are aware of how many people are born in this country and they have failed to prepare for that population.

The Ukrainian was was a thankfully, rare event, causing a massive increase in a short period of time, but we already had housing problems before that.

you do know that Britain leaving the EU hasn't made any difference to their immigration figures?

And I don't believe for one second that the majority of EU citizens will ever agree to getting rid of one of the main tenets of the EU

Sunny Disposition

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792787#Comment_121792787

Again, this is the rubbish you end up having to deal with.

I'm in no way blaming immigrants, the vast majority who have come here are perfectly entitled to be here. And the vast majority are also excellent people. In general I would say immigrant workers are at least as productive as Irish, if not much more so.

But large scale immigration is still the biggest reason for the housing crisis. People can still argue that we have appropriate immigration policies if they want, and that the housing crisis is a price worth paying. But pretending that the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants since 2000 is not the main reason for the shortage of housing is just a nonsense.

Pretending that any Government won't rely almost solely on luck to deliver an effective housing policy when it has no control over the level of immigration is another nonsense. It's magical thinking.

Sunny Disposition

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792760#Comment_121792760

Councils are building social houses all over the country, it's subcontracted, because that is the most effective way of doing it.

I think you're unwittingly correct about one thing though, the level of delivery of social houses is damaging the market for working people. It certainly is where I live anyway.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121791144#Comment_121791144

How do you figure building less homes will solve the housing crisis?

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792841#Comment_121792841

Again, this is the rubbish you end up having to deal with.

What rubbish exactly?

The fact that governments gave away hundreds of thousands of state owned properties, and didn't replace them?

That governments failed to plan for the population born here?

So let's send away all one million foreign born people from Ireland and take back the 1.5 million Irish born that live overseas.

Oh, so much better off, with those extra half a million people, no housing crisis at all! Government policies really worked well...........

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792841#Comment_121792841

Large numbers of immigrants choose to rent and never to buy their own house in Ireland. How do you explain the lack of affordable new homes for Irish people?