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

In response to this week's figures highlighting a further rise in homelessness, the Irish Times reports that the minister was "disappointed" but "not surprised." Oh?

Now compare this indifferent attitude to the government's mindset when it comes to housing "refugees." Here the language takes a decidedly different tone: it's "urgent," an "emergency," a "crisis", and the public are implored to offer up something---anything---to alleviate the problem.

Given the obvious priorities, it's hardly surprising that Irish students are being evicted to facilitate these plantations.

Mea culpa - there was 70k Ukrainians in 10 months, 13.5k asylum seekers in 12 months. So 83.5k, 8k on top for the undocumented scheme n can't find numbers for family repatriation. Anyone know the numbers for repatriation?

Care to quote any posts ?

Regarding building houses / infastructure...

Every week in the local papers here in the West, all we read is planning for new housing developments denied by ABP in Athenry, Tuam, Gort, Barna, city suburbs, etc..

The Galway outerby pass is dead and buried after 20 years and millions spent. Traffic is worst than ever now with population growing every year and piss public transport across the city and no school buses to ease school run traffic.

Talks of new primary care clinics and hospital extensions are marred with planning objections and planning red tape.

I 100% appreciate that we need planning laws and need to.protect areas of conservation, natural beauty and historical interests .. but the country will never solve housing & healthcare back logs unless we radically change planning laws. We are being held hostage by the greens and ABP.

Very short term view you have here.

Do you expect ip applicants to stay direct provision forever? They will eventually have to leave and find suitable alternative accommodation like the rest of the population.

Of course they're linked they will be competing against people already living here for a limited supply of housing.

Houses are outrageously expensive to build now due to new regulations and i believe there is going to be even more restrictive building regs introduced soon so i can't see any government building en masse social housing.

But how many (non Ukrainian) current and former refugees are there in total in Ireland.....50,000 maybe? Around 1% of the population. There's a danger that this issue is being completely overblown. 1% of the population being refugees is not an especially high percentage for any country in Europe.

2 people moved out of their own homes to house Ukrainian refugees?

Was that an altruistic move do you think?

What exactly is the point of taking refugees ? we've a failed health system and housing system, we can't get our own "house" in order here, yet we're pretending like we're going to do something for "refugees", whatever that is.

every few weeks there's another article about someone taking the HSE to court because they killed/maimed someone.

people pay taxes all their lives yet can't get basic help off the government that our taxes is supposed to cover, we could all list here all day things like special needs kids not getting assessed, getting the run around from civil servants etc...

So a government that won't help it's own people is allegedly full of the love for random people all over the planet??? pull the other one. it seems to be all some game. taking in the few tens or hundreds of thousands is going to achieve what exactly to better the countries they're coming from?

we only ever hear we're obliged to take people, never obliged to demand peace and prosperity for all people around the earth. this country was in the crapper for nearly a century after the english were removed, some of us foolishly thought that in the late 1990s that the country was turning a corner. but seemingly it's not.

we welcome every war criminal US president into this country, but never demand from them that they stop the slaughter.

My best guess is this immigration is tied to money flowing around the world, then there's child trafficking for $ex, drugs etc, you can't have wealthy and powerful people using children and drugs if they can't get access to them.

I dunno, smarter people than me need to explain how taking a tiny portion of people fleeing the crapper (in some cases, in others is just opportunistic criminals) but leaving most of them in these countries with whatever civil wars or alleged persecution they're facing is achieving a whole lot?

is it not our responsibility to stop injustice if it's happening in some other places, rather than putting a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. otherwise lets just leave the UN and end the facade.

i suppose someone is going to tell me the arms industry is nearly gone out of business ? what with all the lovely people in charge of things around the globe and that two of the main two countries in europe, france and germany, aren't also in the top ten of arms exporters.