What are your views on Multiculturalism in Ireland? - Threadbanned User List in OP
Comments
-
Yes. Spreading completely false information like that could hopefully be covered under some new legislation.
0 -
We just have a very different perspective of what we consider a crisis is all. All the people you mentioned, like couples that aren’t having children because they can’t afford a bigger house? Do you imagine having more children in that scenario is going to mean they can then afford a bigger house?
You’re basically throwing shìt at a wall and hoping something sticks, you’re not even thinking your examples through. Even considering the fact that there are over 10,000 people on local authority housing lists who qualify as homeless, they’re not without a roof over their heads, and when Margaret Cash brought the issue to national attention, she was eviscerated on social media. There was little concern for people who are homeless then, it was all about how people in those circumstances should not be accommodated by the State.
Framing your argument as feigned concern for people who are homeless as a means to argue against immigration or asylum seekers is fairly transparent - you couldn’t give a shiny shyte about either group, you’re just using one to argue against the other.
It shows how out of touch you are when you’re not even aware that people who are homeless have been accommodated in hotels for years now -
There’s a budget for that accommodation the same way there’s a budget for accommodation for asylum seekers, and it isn’t unlimited, it’s coming from a number of sources including the EU for example -
1 -
Aren't you the same individual that was on here crying and spreading fake news about a homophobic hate crime that never happened. Yes that was you alright.
14 -
You couldn't wait to come on and spread false information about migrants could you. The post you liked above about the weird conspiracy theories says it all.
3 -
I remember when I was a kid I read " The Emperor's New Clothes". I remember thinking that there was no way that society could be so stupid as to say the emperor was wearing clothes when he clearly wasn't.
However here we are, you watch the media and politicians and they constantly praise multiculturalism and say how awesome it is. They literally never discuss the drawbacks to multiculturalism like the effect it has on housing.
However when you objectively look at multiculturalism it really offers Europeans very very little. The evidence is fairly clear: it reduces the amount of housing for Irish, it reduces wages, it puts pressure on hospitals, immigrants need financial support from the taxpayer. In general it just reduces the quality of life in europe.
On the positive side the supporters of multiculturalism seem to have few arguments that bear any scrutiny... what arguments have been presented for multiculturalism? Tasty food? Maybe some platitudes like "diversity is strength"?
9 -
Advertisement
-
🤣
You were caught rapid spreading racist hatemongering lies.
It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Terry Pratchet
2 -
My experience of multiculturalism
I had a child born a number of years ago with a heart defect. The corrective surgery was successfully carried out by a foreign surgeon in Crumlin. The post-surgical ICU care was lead by an foreign nurse. Without these amazing human beings the surgery might not have happened on time
The problems that many of you rightly point out regarding homelessness are the ideas of Irish political parties that were formed from opposite sides of the Irish Civil War now working together
People are angry and I get that but it's not the fault of foreigners, immigrants, refugees or Asylum seekers
2 -
Doctors and nurses would come with a visa and then probably apply for citizenship. Completely different to the last point.
18 -
That Ireland - and other European countries - hire medical staff from outside Europe is not a requirement. It is a policy implemented by the state. A different policy could be implemented. European countries, with their economic resources and educated populations could staff their own medical services, as indeed they did for all recorded history up until about 40-50 years ago. Ireland, and other European countries, could still choose to train and hire medical staff from within their own populations.
They choose not to, with dubious results for all concerned, anecdotes aside.
Legal or illegal, mass migration is a net negative for the indigenous people.
16 -
Precisely. The policy is deliberate. Remember this?
6 -
Advertisement
-
However when you objectively look at multiculturalism it really offers Europeans very very little. The evidence is fairly clear: it reduces the amount of housing for Irish, it reduces wages, it puts pressure on hospitals, immigrants need financial support from the taxpayer. In general it just reduces the quality of life in europe.
You’re not looking at multiculturalism objectively if you’re lumping all European countries together as though the Irish education system for example is in any way similar to the French education system. Different cultures exist all across Europe in different countries - most countries in Europe don’t even share a common language! That’s what’s meant by multiculturalism, not just migration patterns. Immigration is only one aspect of multiculturalism.
Immigration (because that’s what you’re actually referring to), doesn’t reduce the amount of housing available for Irish people. What does reduce the amount of housing for Irish people is when the Government, which is formed by democratic elections as voted for by Irish people, decides to abandon policies like affordable housing, as it did in 2011, because people who owned property didn’t want the value of their properties to drop. Government effectively created an artificial demand for housing for fear that the property market would go tits up and tank the Irish economy.
Immigration doesn’t reduce wages. Employers understandably want to reduce their labour costs. One of the ways to do that is to seek cheap labour, and one of the ways to do that, is to source labour internationally. They’re still doing it, supported by the Irish Government (yes, that one, elected by Irish people), and even up until recently there wasn’t an issue sourcing cheap labour abroad. When even the Spaniards (who once came to Ireland in their droves to pursue education and employment) are turning down invitations because of the cost of accommodation, it’s not immigrants who are responsible for the cost of housing and accommodation being extortionate -
https://www.thejournal.ie/housing-ireland-spanish-workers-hostels-5931955-Nov2022/
Immigration doesn’t put pressure on hospitals either. On the contrary, hospitals in Ireland benefit from immigration, can’t get the staff otherwise with the way the Irish Government (yes, that one, again) have slashed the health budget and have been telling hospitals for decades they need to reduce their costs, because they’re not getting any more money in the budget.
Similar story with education, and now schools in Dublin can’t get the staff, because teachers can’t afford to live there on their meagre salaries. When teachers sought a pay rise, the most popular refrain on here was that they’re paid too much as it is already! Government didn’t even have to say anything, Irish people would do that for them.
Everyone needs support from the taxpayer, most of those people who need support from the taxpayer, are taxpayers themselves! Even taxpayers who are unemployed need support from the taxpayer, and the Irish Government has plans in the works to increase support payments made to taxpayers who become unemployed -
Taxpayers btw, includes immigrants who pay tax. The amount of support immigrants receive from the State pales in comparison to the amount of support Irish people receive from the State. It’s not even worth entertaining, but neither public education nor public healthcare are actually free, most people who avail of the services don’t actually pay for them themselves is all; these services are provided for by the State, and it seems rather obvious to point out that you get what you pay for.
The idea that in general, multiculturalism reduces the quality of life in Europe is a pretty broad generalisation, and one that’s simply untrue. Multiculturalism in and of itself doesn’t do anything, either positive or negative. As a concept it has no intrinsic value. The opposite of a multicultural society, or a heterogeneous society, is an homogeneous society, and Ireland having never been an homogeneous society in the first place would require Irish Government to introduce policies to make Ireland an homogeneous society. Homogeneous societies don’t tend to survive without an authoritarian regime keeping a tight leash on it’s people’s freedoms. Think societies like China, the Stans, and the way India is going under Modi it could go the same direction, African dictatorships are another example.
The UK is fast disappearing up its own arse fuelled by nostalgic notions about their former Empire, it’s too early to tell how it will play out, but right now their economy is in bits. If you imagine that Ireland would be able to survive, economically isolated from the rest of Europe and the world, you’ve got notions, and not much else, much like the Emperor in that Danish folk tale that you read as a child.
0 -
But they are all still foreigners, immigrants, whatever word you want to use. Some of the nurses came here when they were younger as refugees so yeah they, and their parents would have gotten a lot of state aid back then
0 -
People are angry because we’ve no control of our borders, resources or wellbeing.
if we have a shortage of medical personnel… stop with the population increase and offer more places for medical degrees.
12 -
It reduces the amount of housing for IrishWe've had housing crises since the foundation of the state, it's really nothing new
It reduces wagesGovernment policy - in 2008 the government reduced the minimum wage by €1 an hour, JLC's were abolished in 2010, even today minimum wage goes up by less than inflation
It puts pressure on hospitalsThe man who founded the disaster that is the HSE is literally leading our government today, multiculturalism isn't the reason he was voted in
Immigrants need financial support from the taxpayerAs do single mothers, the unemployed, the elderly and our politicians... The % of financial support refugees are getting is miniscule by comparison, other foreigners like working immigrants etc would get no state aid
On the positive side the supporters of multiculturalism seem to have few arguments that bear any scrutinyMaybe there is a very good reason for that
1 -
So you acknowledge that we have these problems and the population increase exacerbates it..
but your rationale… “ we’ve always has “….
sooo… you don’t make it worse and put more pressure on citizens and our services..
13 -
Of course shure mass immigration was once called 'an invasion' and just because the name has changed doesn't change the outcome. How has any mass immigration event worked out for the people who belonged to that land . . . Decimation in all cases. That's why we grew up and developed sensible policies, problem is those policies are being ignored now
5 -
"Immigration (because that’s what you’re actually referring to), doesn’t reduce the amount of housing available for Irish people."
I stopped reading there. On what planet does tens of thousands of immigrants not reduce the amount of housing for Irish people?
When you travel about Ireland and look at the houses. Just consider the people that actually built them. I bet Irish people built about 99% of them. I know this is a bit controversial, however, I think houses in Ireland, built by Irish people should have Irish people staying in them.
20 -
So basically you're saying that the Irish just have to see their quality of life go down?
I'm not even against immigration, however the quality and quantity of immigration needs controlled. Someone needing state support or that can't speak Engish shouldn't be allowed in... I know that probably makes me a "far right extremist" to someone like you.
15 -
The Irish housing market must be the only market in the world where the normal laws of supply and demand don't apply.
I feel like Scotty on the Enterprise at this stage.
Ya cannot deny the laws of supply and demand Jim.
No matter how much you increase supply if demand rises at a faster rate you are in trouble
17 -
On a planet where it doesn’t.
Housing Irish people isn’t just influenced by their ability to afford housing, it’s influenced by their own attitudes towards housing, like the example you gave earlier of couples deciding they couldn’t have children because they couldn’t afford a bigger house. I’m sure it makes complete sense in their heads, or yours anyway. Immigrants aren’t reducing the availability of housing, they’re just in a better position to be able to afford it where Irish people are not.
What’s more controversial than your follow-up point is the idea that anyone is entitled to a house solely by virtue of the fact that they’re an Irish citizen. The idea of a right to housing has been floated about for a few years now, but the idea faces considerable opposition from the current Government -
I don’t need to travel around Ireland to know that labour in the construction industry during 2000 - 2010 was mostly immigrants, not Irish people, who were building ghost estates for developers who walked away with billions after selling the properties to NAMA, who sold them on to corporate investors -
Then developers started up again, while leaving people who purchased properties in the estates very much in the lurch. They just aren’t called ghost estates any more, but still the same thing -
https://www.thejournal.ie/ghost-estates-whats-happening-3308561-Apr2017/
The slowdown in housing stock growth can also be observed when analysing the year of construction among occupied dwellings.
Just 33,436 householders indicated their dwelling was built between 2011 and 2016, an average of just 6,687 per year. In contrast, 431,763 households stated that their dwelling was built between 2001 and 2010, an average of 43,176 per year.
Figure 2.3 shows that almost half of new homes were built in rural areas. In Dublin City and suburbs, from a total of 422,182, only 6,598 (1.6%) indicated that their house or apartment was constructed from 2011 onwards.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp1hii/cp1hii/od/
Who do you imagine should occupy the vast majority of houses built in the last 20 years that weren’t built by Irish people? 🤔
Considering your approach to housing policies at least, it wouldn’t be possible to mistake you for a far-right extremist, more like the sort of ideologically motivated nonsense I’d associate with the type of person who imagines Sinn Fein are offering the solutions to all the problems they see with the economy - very much of a leftist bent, while ignoring Sinn Féin’s position on immigration.
0 -
Advertisement
-
That's where I stopped reading, too.
The idea that hundreds of thousands of people suddenly entering a country has no impact on housing, or GP appointments, or school places for kids, amounts to a level of delusion that I've yet come across on this thread.
Where are they going to live then? Who are the GPs they need to attend? Whose bed in hospital will they occupy? Which school will they suddenly find extra places for their kids?
Some things are quite simply self-discrediting.
Anyone who sees how Ireland has transformed over the past two decades understands perfectly well that in the real world - accommodation, housing, GP appointments, school places for kids etc. - has become dramatically worse precisely because of open-door immigration.
Anyone who argues otherwise is not living in the real world.
21 -
It’s Capitalism Jim, as we know it - holding back on supply creates an artificial demand which raises the value of the product or service.
0 -
I guess people have to decide who makes the more rational arguments:
A. The people who want to reduce immigration because of the pressure on housing and other public services. Or
B. The pro immigration crowd who say immigration has absolutely no impact on housing supply for Irish people.
13 -
Are you still wondering who would be stupid enough to believe the Emperor is wearing no clothes? You’re doing exactly the same thing - anyone who doesn’t agree with you is irrational. That’s how the weavers managed to swindle not just the Emperor, but the people - by appealing to their egos.
Reducing immigration doesn’t reduce the pressure on housing and other public services. Immigrants are necessary to fill the existing demands of a growing economy due to lack of supply of labour -
It’s not immigrants that impact the housing supply. It’s been Government policy for the last decade that the market will be what determines the availability of housing and the value of housing. If supply meets demand, the value of properties declines - Irish property owners get pissy because they’re left in negative equity while immigrants are packed into a three bed because they have no issues with sharing with other immigrants. Those people who can’t afford accommodation either receive support from the State in the form of housing assistance payments, or those ‘family hubs’ you mentioned earlier, or hotels, which you didn’t - it’s shìt, but it costs the State far less than flooding the market with affordable housing.
Current Government policies are saving the taxpayer money, but you’re not happy because you see people you believe to be non-European in your local shopping centre. Would you prefer if they were invisible? 😂
0 -
Not at all.
But seriously? People want to engage with your points on multiculturalism, but to constantly present essays does not an argument make.
9 -
Engage with the points then, rather than trying to make silly swipes in the hope of a few thanks.
You’d have a point for example about the pressure on the education and healthcare systems if it weren’t for the fact that immigrants are spread out across the whole country, they’re not all attending the same hospitals and their children aren’t all attending same schools at the same time. Just in terms of healthcare for example -
Conclusions
Lower use of healthcare by those born outside Ireland and the UK relative to the native Irish population may be due to different approaches to healthcare utilisation or obstacles to healthcare utilisation. The findings suggest that the utilisation of healthcare by immigrants merits continued policy attention to respond to the needs of these key groups in society and facilitate integration.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266662352100043X
In reality the narrative you’re trying to portray just isn’t supported by evidence. You’re trying to conjure up a fearmongering narrative out of nothing.
0 -
"It’s not immigrants that impact the housing supply"
When you're in a hole you should stop digging! On second thoughts you carry on. People need to see how deluded the pro immigration lot are.
15 -
There are several issues the main one is government policy. There is a decent amount of stuck tied up in vulture funds. They are always waiting till the last minute then rennervate. They should be told get off the pot or massive tax take and fines. it would free up a decent amount but no one would be able to afford them.
1 -
All fair points. However mass immigration does reduce housing supply for the Irish and put up rents...
8 -
Advertisement
-
I’m not in any hole. You’ve yet to quantify just how much of an impact you think immigrants are having on the housing supply?
And I don’t mean pulling a percentage out of nowhere and telling me how you’re able to know who is non-European just by looking at them in your local shopping centre. You also invited me to take a look around the country and you can tell 99% of houses are built by Irish people, and we both know that’s definitely not true because the construction industry relied on cheap labour from Eastern Europe during the years when a lot of those houses were built.
When the boom went bust, a lot of them went home, some of them stayed and made Ireland their home, and enrolled their children in the local schools, and I don’t need to take a look around schools either when I can retrieve objective evidence from the CSO rather than your anecdotal observations (my own eyesight is shìt so I wouldn’t be relying on it in any case! 😂) -
There were 96,497 non-Irish national students and pupils aged 5 years and over resident in Ireland in 2016 accounting for 18 per cent of all non-Irish nationals. The largest group were Poles (22,450 persons) followed by UK nationals (11,704), Lithuanian (7,133) and Brazilian (4,632).
European continentals accounted for two in three non-Irish national students aged 5 years and over in 2016. Asian (14.3%) and American (10.1%) students were next while students with African nationality (6.5%) had the lowest share.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp7md/p7md/p7se/
Non-Irish nationals make up only about 10% of the total school population between primary and secondary education, the total figure being about 965,000 students in Irish schools -
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-mip/measuringirelandsprogress2020/education/
It’s not about being “pro-immigration” or “anti-immigration”, the fact is Ireland’s economy in order to keep growing, needs immigration, we need immigrants to come here, and we also need to maintain an artificially high demand in housing in order to maintain property values at their highest levels, because if the Government were to flood the market with social housing, it wouldn’t just be terrible for the property market, it would be a disaster for our economy. It’s more cost effective to provide accommodation on a temporary basis than it is to provide permanent accommodation to people who cannot afford it, and don’t want to pay for it either -
Dublin City Council is owed more than €38 million in rent arrears from social housing tenants.
The average weekly rent charge is €72.54 across the Council's 25,159 tenancies. A report due to be presented to DCC's Finance Committee states that just under a third of all these tenancies - 8,050 - are in rent arrear.
And 51 tenants owe more than €27,000 each, while a further 136 owe between €19,000 and €27,000. Another 589 households have rent arrears of between €11,000 and €19,000.
More than half of home borrowers in long-term arrears paid nothing in past two years
At the end of September 2020, there were 55,448 home mortgages in arrears (not including buy to lets) which represents a 10 per cent decrease for the same period in 2019. Of those mortgages in arrears, 9,268 accounts (17 per cent) have been in arrears for between 2 and 5 years, 11,489 accounts (21 per cent) have been in arrears for between two and five years and 5,104 accounts (9 per cent) have been arrears for longer than ten years. These long term mortgages (in arrears for two years or more years) account for almost half the total number of mortgages in arrears. Notably the only category to have grown in number from 2019 were the mortgages in arrears for 10 or more years. This figure increased by 1,564 accounts, possibly indicating that for this cohort of borrowers, viable solutions are proving difficult to find.
Of those mortgages in arrears, 7,938 (14 per cent) of them have legal proceedings initiated against them. This means that the lender has brought the case to the court to request possession of the mortgaged property as the account has fallen into default. Some 5,466 of these cases have been in the court system for over two years and 2,304 have been in the court system for more than five years. This could be for a myriad of reasons, however the Central Bank Report acknowledges that “engagement between borrowers in mortgage arrears and the holder of their loans has proven to be an important step in the successful resolution of mortgage arrears” and that this does take time.
Since the financial crash of 2008, despite the levels and volumes of mortgage arrears, repossession is still viewed as the last resort. Indeed, between 2011 and 2020 there have been a total of 9,983 cases where ownership transferred back to the bank, either on foot of a court order or voluntarily by the borrower.
What do you imagine increases the cost of lending exactly? Because it sure as hell isn’t immigrants who aren’t taking out mortgages to purchase properties and then defaulting on their mortgage, increasing not just the cost of housing, but also the cost of borrowing money to purchase properties which are going for extortionate prices due to an artificially inflated market that the Government needs to maintain, in order to maintain the value of the housing market at a time when Irish landlords are getting out because there’s no easy money in it for them any more with all the regulations to protect tenant’s interests so they can’t easily be put out on the streets as it was once easy to do if they didn’t pay their rent -
The rental market has shrunk by 43,000 homes in the last five years in a further squeeze on renters as landlords continue to cash in on their properties and leave the market.
The figures come as an unpublished draft survey by the RTB, seen by Independent.ie, reveals how a quarter of smaller private landlords want to sell up in the next five years, because they are not making enough money from rental income.
There were 43,599 fewer lease agreements registered with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) in 2021 compared to 2016, latest data shows.
There were 319,822 tenancies in 2016 and the rental watchdog estimates this fell to 276,223 last year.
And you’re trying to say immigrants are having an impact on housing? It’s not a shovel you need at all, it’s a fcuking JCB, and keep digging till you hit Australia 😒
0
![[Deleted User]](/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)