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

Why is this so radical to you? Or the modern world in general? Humans largely lived like this for a large part of humanity, and choose to live like this because they wanted to. Not all relics of the past should be abandoned in the name of modernism, in the name of just because. It's not to say that we should be some sort of ethno state, but there's literally nothing wrong with keeping a very small and managed immigrant population, especially when there's many societal benefits.

People are tribal and will always feel more comfortable with their tribe, you'll never break that, it's impossible, so it shouldn't be ignored. Why play with fire? The fabric of society? All in the name of profit for some and feeling good for others, both groups largely being a minority in the nation at the end of the day too.

No one voted it for this, it was all be forced on us.

Are we a rich nation or not? The pros on this thread keep telling us how rich and prosperous we are, yet feign about economic worries when it suits them. You can't have it both ways.

I'm pretty sure you're a great supporter of state support in general from your posting history, yet now you act worried about said state support? You don't even care about what you're saying in my opinion.

Forced by whom? People move here because they want to move here : people leave because they want to leave. The various mass emigrations of the past 100 years would not have been wanted by any Irish government and were therefore happening against their own wishes (no sign whatsoever of shadowy elites in the background pulling the strings).

It’s impossible to have a discussion with you when you are persistently ignoring the demographic reality as it pertains in Ireland today. You’ve been presented with the facts around our fertility rate and population pyramid, both of which are relatively healthy.

Given that reality, it wouldn’t take very much to incentivise a relatively small % increase in the fertility rate, plus encouraging sensible levels of supplementary immigration to ensure Ireland remains demographically healthy for many decades into the future. That’s the reality and the starting point for any discussion around this topic.

If there are no shadowy elites, then who is "forcing" Ireland to accept immigration? Would it be the entire Dáil perhaps, elected by the Irish people and with no elected representatives of any anti-immigration party?

I mentioned disability because you were talking about those on welfare to start which is too general as I pointed out to you .

Not getting into a discussion on the rights or wrongs of social welfare here , as you know it's off topic .

I’ve been entirely unambiguous. I’m afraid you’re a little confused.

I don’t believe I’ve ever once mentioned the term ‘overpopulation’. Given you’ve attributed that claim to me, please be so kind as to reference the relevant post / quote. In your own time of course.

Do you see any issue with encouraging replacement level fertility? I don’t. In fact, I’ve done my part with three kids under 7!

This is complete nonsense .

" lockstep housing shortage ' ..it is not .

We have had a shortage of housing building from 2012 on when housebuilding was decimated post crash .

That is not lockstep. It is incremental .

Secondly Ireland does not have a problem with " overpopulation " .

We have a population density that is on the lower scale of countries in Europe, and those who are lower than us are only the Baltic and Nordic countries .

We rank 36 out of 49 countries in Europe , 125 out of 239 in the world .

Here is a map of European pop density ..

The only places that have any level of population are our major cities and they are still on a low pop density in comparison to other cities in Europe . We have a population density of 73 / km 2.

What we need to do is disperse our population better to towns and villages around the country, by decentralising industry and services . This has been ongoing especially since Covid with more people moving to country areas if they can work remotely .

Also a more intensive local council house building programme is needed to catch up on the housing that wasn't built in the last 10 years as shown by a good link here yesterday . ( @Ahwell I think )

Ireland has had too much unused housing until recent years with holiday homes , ghost estates, dereliction , and saying the current housing shortage is due to recent immigration is a facile argument and it is a well known ploy of those who favour a particular type of population control .

Finally when plucking questions out of Junior Cert exam papers ( think it was in reality a Leaving Cert Geography question),

I suggest you read the full question .

It talked about ,yes , scarcity of housing, resources and services , but also food ...why and what was it referring to ? Ireland , Europe ?

No .. It was about the Sahel region , North Africa which is being studied as an example of the worst effects of climate change on the Geography syllabus !

"Africa's semi-arid Sahel region is a crucible of climate change, population movement and jihadist attacks.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this month called it a "microcosm of cascading global risks converging in one region."

So you got the exam question wrong, the example wrong and the context completely backwards " !

To pull this out and post it as an example in this thread not only beggars belief, but also shows the level of gaslighting or complete incompetence that the rest of us are being subjected to here on this thread .

Do you see any issue with encouraging replacement level fertility? I don’t. In fact, I’ve done my part with three kids under 7!

When it comes to fertility and sustainable population growth, the statistics are more concerned with your wife doing her bit, rather than any concerns about men’s fertility… but I got what you meant 😁

That’s why immigrants need to be encouraged to come to Ireland to contribute to the labour market, as opposed to the idea of relying on family friendly policies with increased access to childcare - they’re all well and good, but they don’t influence people’s decisions when it comes to their own families at the level you’re expecting.

Families already have access to childcare, but Government are more interested in encouraging women into the workforce than providing for childcare. Immigrants being employed in the childcare industry for half nothing are expected to provide those services with the expectation that women will gain greater equality with men in the workplace. That hasn’t happened in 20 years, but it hasn’t stopped Government from trying.

By that same logic (and I’m not suggesting it isn’t fundamentally flawed), the expectation in the future is to increase immigration to support an increasing aging population, as opposed to the idea of encouraging women to have more children in order to support a theoretical level of replacement of the population. We’re still well above the average fertility rate for the EU as a whole:

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/17/fertility-in-europe-which-countries-have-the-highest-and-lowest-numbers-of-live-births-per

We do have a low population density, that is true.

But that does not necessarily mean that we have available resources to manage a large population increase.

We must remember that the ratio of housing/hospitals/schools et al Vs the population is not an even correlation across all countries.

Which means that a country with a high population density may well be best placed to accomodate a large population increase, as it may have a surplus of housing/resources etc.

Similarly, a low population density country, with a housing shortfall and strained services, would likley not have capacity to manage any form of large population growth.

The interesting question with ireland is, how many homes are unoccupied and are in a habitable state?

I suspect there are rather a lot, but that they are mostly owned privatley and the owners do not wish to rent them out or sell them and prefer to sit on the asset.

The govt should have built many more properties over the last few deacades, for multiple reasons.

If they had done so, we wouldnt be in the mess we are in now and we would be able to accomodate more asylum seekers, as well as address the domestic social housing list.

In short, the current issues with accomodating asylum immigrants is mostly down to the govts lack of investment in housing and services.

Which is the same root cause of our long social housing list and also the overpriced rents that are being paid under duress, by those that can afford them.

That’s fine. You’re gracious enough to confirm that you were wrong. No issues.

But there's no party (although there are a few disparate 'rural independents') advocating the kind of 'controlled immigration' policies you favour either.

How have they expressed this angst? Through opinion polls & calls to Liveline? These forums have no standing in a democracy. The only meaningful way to make your voice heard is through the ballot box. And if no candidates with a coherent 'controlled immigration' platform are returned to the Dail at the next general election, the established parties will have a mandate to carry on their current course, irrespective of any Virgin Media polls...

I was reading that from another thread.

This line intrigued me.

"The court heard the accused works as a labourer earning €700 a week, plus €30 social welfare"

Can you actually earn 700 quid and still get an extra 30. Or is that just the 30 quid allowance they get.

Aye, that article seems a bit confusing alright. It probably does refer to the daily expenses allowance, as asylum seekers aren’t entitled to apply for social welfare benefits until their claim for refugee status is granted:

• An a protection applicant is not entitled to social welfare support. They are subject to a means test and if they cannot live independently, they receive payment referred to as the Daily Expenses Allowance (DEA). 

https://www.irishrefugeecouncil.ie/faqs/do-people-seeking-asylum-receive-social-welfare

I think the point is that while high-skilled inward migration is a net positive for this country, so too is unskilled inward inward migration a net positive for this country. Obviously both forms of immigration are something we have more control over than the amount of control we have over the numbers of immigrants seeking asylum. Different conditions apply to asylum seekers, conditions which are in accordance with our international human rights obligations and our humanitarian endeavours as a nation.

I read it as more of a rhetorical question tbh.