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

Any thoughts to express so @Strazdas @Goldengirl ?

You've had well over 24 hours to "peruse" those links saying the majority of Irish people are VERY concerned about the amount of migrants and Ukrainians Ireland has taken in. One poll says 2/3rds of people want limits on the amount of refugees we take, a second poll says 3 out of 4 people think Ireland has already taken too many refugees, third poll reveals 61% of voters are concerned too many refugees are coming here. These are facts!

You are normally very quick to attack every poster that has the temerity questions current Government policy on migration. So can we assume you can see the majority of Irish people don't agree with you and you are wrong to say it is a minority of right wing social media users. Its not.

Kinda blows a hole in theory of your fellow poster/supporter Strazdas" I believe there a natural empathy out there for refugees given our own history. The racists and bigots making noise all over Irish social media are very much a minority and certainly no 'silent majority'....that myth has long since been debunked.

There is no longer a small minority of people on Irish social media questioning what is going on. This is mainstream now. I am 62, I have children and grandchildren. I have 6 siblings and numerous friends in my age group and in their 40's and 50's. NONE of them agree with what is happening in our country. Friends that I would have considered very conservative and liberal are very angry at the speed of and scale of what's happening, the lack of transparency and consultation. There will be a huge swing against the Government in the next election. That is where you will see the majority dissent. Its massive at this stage.

I agree with you but the only option is a protest vote for one of the nutter fringe parties or some sympathetic independent.

All the mainstream parties are on board with the idea we have an obligation to house all who turn up, backed by the Irish media. Disagree and you’re far right, not just being pragmatic that we have only so much room available

I don't attack other posters . Posts yes , and not those that criticise the government, but those that are naked wild claims about immigration .

All I will say to you.

Compulsory orders to build asylum centres I wondered when this was coming !! 

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41226649.html?utm_source=irishexaminer&utm_campaign=41226649&utm_medium=lunchtimenewsletter

42 million a MONTH on AS provision, plus an estimate of 3 BILLION this year for Ukrainian support was quoted last year by McGrath:

How is this at all sustainable in a country where the cost of living has skyrocketed, people can't find or afford homes (or are being outbid by councils/NGOs using their own taxes against them), violent crime is nearly a daily feature on the Capital's streets (and our Minister for Justice is more concerned about hurt feelings and speed limits), healthcare is falling apart (even private insurance won't cut through it anymore - and that's before the annual "we're at breaking point" campaign from the HSE as winter sets in) etc.

We can't even support those already here yet we are preparing to invite more - because that's exactly what these articles are: global invitations to come and get it.. and now we'll force the repurposing of State (ie: our!) lands to accommodate them while 30-something years olds are back living with their parents!

Then the Government act shocked when they face resistance and criticism from the natives who are being expected to not just pay for this, not just accept being pushed down the priority lists, but should support and advocate for it?? Small wonder that many have had enough and are protesting with still more increasingly grumbling in the background. People who ordinarily would be at worst apathetic are now openly critical of all this in my own experience with it being discussed among friends and in workplaces.

The last time we saw something that unified the population like this was the Irish Water farce of 2014 and that led to tens of thousands taking to the streets and even more just refusing to register or engage. We're heading down the same path I think but all the other elements I've mentioned are causing a level of frustration and anger that even that mess didn't have.

Yet still we haven't been told where the limits are ("there are none" the Government maintain) or WHY we must do this ("legal obligations" we're told - which are demonstrably false!) or WHO it benefits (it's certainly not the people of Ireland, or even the new arrivals at this stage given the conditions!).

I'll keep asking the question until we get an answer - what is really going on here?

And people wonder why they are pushing new hate crime laws through and the media pushing the far right infiltrating Ireland to ramp up anti migrant hysteria ,you mention migrants and bogus asylum seekers your instantly label as a racist to shut down any discussions ,I honestly don't think we will see the mass protests we saw with the water, instead we will get plenty of rte panelists telling us about the far right

I think outside the confines of Twitter, this forum and other social media, very few are buying or are even bothered by the "you big racist" screeching of NGO types, media pundits angling for a future job as a TD's staffer (or just related to one), and people like Helen McEntee or Leo Varadkar who are constantly trying to be on message with the latest trending crusade.

In the real world, people are seeing their own situations and future prospects deteriorating, living with the problems this has caused and watching their communities transformed virtually overnight in some cases for no reason or benefits to them or theirs.

It's even worse for those who pay for everything and get very little if anything in return - those who earn "too much" for any support but not enough to really benefit from it, those who "get up early in the morning" to see over half their wages taken in tax and charges, but then watch those taxes used to outbid them on property, or used to support anyone and everyone who arrives at the border with a sad story (regardless of if it's true or not) while they struggle to pay their childcare, utility bills and fuel costs, can't get a doctor's appointment in less than a week/fortnight, can't find a school place for their kids if they haven't bid for it years earlier, or have their adult kids back at home because they can't afford or find a place of their own... etc etc.

A (literal) few quid per week back in the Budget - which will be eaten up by increased costs anyway - will do nothing to address any of this or assuage their concerns.

Nobody cares what some RTE presenter says (especially after the revelations of the mismanagement and corruption exposed in RTE during the Tubridy affair) and many have stopped paying their TV license in protest. Many more rarely watch or listen to the "national broadcaster" anyway (which is why the next step is to modify the license to ensure EVERYONE pays for it anyway under penalty of Revenue involvement - charming!)

The problem is that all of the big 3 parties are pushing this current "strategy" which is why I personally think it's being pushed from above (EU level). It's the only thing that makes sense unless our "leaders" and wannabes really want to commit political suicide, and it wouldn't be the first time our "friends" in Europe imposed their will on us - as the late Brian Lenehan learned during the financial crisis and actually tried to resist . Never forget that.

Whatever is really behind this determined effort to ignore reality and the effects these policies are having in Ireland, it's not in our interests anyway.

All of the talk of "NGOs, politicians and the media" is completely ignoring that most Irish people are very sympathetic towards refugees - probably given our own history of the Famine and subsequent forced emigration from the country for the next 100 years and more.

There's been a lot made of the fact that Ireland has taken in more Ukrainian refugees per capita than many European countries, but I would suggest this it is no coincidence or accident that this has happened - it very much ties in with what I mentioned above. For sure, the political class and the media are backing this all the way, but there's not much evidence they are out of kilter with the Irish public on this either.

*deleted double post *

I would again suggest that there is no evidence that the majority of Irish people have any issue with Ukrainian refugees coming to Ireland. If you look at social media, most of the noise about Ukrainian refugees is coming from the far right and the extreme left - the 'usual suspects' in other words.

This business of the 'silent majority' is evidently nonsense. How come the main six or seven political parties are picking up all the support in opinion polls and any party which stands on anti-refugee platform is being totally ignored?

Who said anyone has issues with Ukrainians arriving here (650 a week) just because it’s been pointed out we can only offer tents in the midlands fields? Now pointing this out makes you bizarrely either far right or far left.

Its like Trumps deranged posts about the Democrats being socialist,fascist and communist

I believe the country is fücked…the dystopian nightmare is becoming reality. The politicians do not give two fûcks about us or this country.

It's become increasingly worse over the last decade, and in the last 5/6 years in particular.

Coincidentally around the time we got entitled, immature, inexperienced, trend-following, virtue-signalling, identity-first types in Government promoted to senior leadership positions. The problems that these types cause in ordinary workplaces is well documented. It should be no surprise that the same problems have manifested in the political arena.

This is why we have Varadkar who struggled to be re-elected last time, whose party had to overrule its own membership to see him made Taoiseach (the members wanted Coveney - not that he'd be any better! Likely worse as he's an even bigger fan of this open borders idea), and whose primary achievements in the job have been examples of poor judgement and narcissism (picnics and foreign gigs while the country was restricted during covid, cringeworthy letters to Kylie specifically written as the Taoiseach, him and his partner embarrassing themselves and the country at the King Charles coronation etc).

McEntee of course had no real or relevant experience before she was elected on a sympathy vote in Meath and yet now she's holding one of the most senior and critical posts in the country?? A post she uses to giveaway citizenship (in the context of this thread) and rollback the decision of a referendum in doing so, grandstand on social media and enact dangerous legislation that could see people prosecuted for others hurt feelings, and sponsoring knee-jerk reactions to some tragic individual RTAs that will only make the situation worse as it doesn't address the problem - all while crime stats surge and the Gardai are voting no confidence in their commissioner.

I could go on, but even these two examples show the damage that is being caused to our political establishment (which was never great to start with) and what happens when you elect politicians on identity and blind party loyalty rather than competence, experience and actual policies.

The country is being overrun with people that we can't support, can't verify who they are in a lot of cases, can't find somewhere to put them and which the above mentioned "leaders" and their colleagues refuse to put a halt to. It's not the new arrivals fault - the Government invited them here! - but they like the ordinary citizen are feeling the consequences of these decisions

It's only because concerns and anger over this worsening situation is building and becoming so commonplace on social media that I believe the Government aren't blind to it and despite trying to write it off as "far right agitators" (a laughable claim in a country like Ireland given our history over even the last 15/20 years), that these mandates MUST be coming from higher up the chain in the EU. We already know that FF and FG are EU sycophants with many former TDs (even failed ones) going on to lucrative jobs in the Commission after life here becomes stale. I'm not even going to include the Greens who are a bunch of tax happy ideologues that would have us living in 3rd word squalor while China, India and other places continue to damage the environment far more than 5 million Irish EVER could - but they too are part of the problem (as they were last time they were in Government) by propping up this arrangement in the face of disaster (IMF on the streets last time, multiple crisis this time).

But more than all of this, are two bigger issues - a compliant and docile print media (made up of staffers either related to, married to, or hoping to eventually work for TDs directly), a national broadcaster trying to squeeze more funds out of a population that increasingly don't watch it anyway so as to keep the internal gravy flowing (as we saw recently but which we all knew was the case anyway), and secondly an electorate starved of real alternatives (partly because anything that threatens the status quo is either marginalised or demonised by the media groups, and also because the "barrier for entry" is so high that unless you're a one-issue "independent" it's very hard to gain real traction).

The electorate isn't blameless though - after all we (those who bother to show up anyway) keep voting these people in and then don't get involved in holding them to account until the next day out 5 years on. However, FF and FG have found a way around even that through "Confidence and Supply", and now outright coalition and in-house deals after the election is held. Even voting isn't a guarantee of change (even minimal/superficial as it might be nowadays) anymore.

To bring this back on point - though it's important to review the reasons and causes behind the current migration situation just as much as the effects - I would agree with you that there is a real problem here that local politicians are either deliberately making worse or ignoring, and whose real sponsors (if my analysis is correct) are far beyond the reach of the Irish electorate - most people couldn't even name an MEP never mind what they do.

What does this all mean? Well in real terms it's already too late as we've seen from many of the problems (but not covered too intensely by our primary media outlets) over the few years that started 15/20 years earlier, and now we're seeing more immediate problems from allowing anyone and everyone into the country regardless of background, cultural fit or beliefs etc. Again these things aren't generally covered but they are very real regardless as those living in the communities involved will know, and which will only worsen as the frustrations and problems on the ground (from both the natives and the new arrivals who've been effectively just abandoned there).

Where will it end? I fear we only need to look to places like France, the UK and Germany to see that. They're further down the line with this "experiment" but there's no reason to think Ireland will be any different - especially given the "quality" of our Government and TDs in general.

In any case one thing is certain, it's going to get worse before it gets better. No other outcome is possible so long as the politicians stay this course.

@clytemnestra, yes you have McEntee, Martin and O Gorman and plenty others and indeed Imv history will judge them harshly for their governance in this period but there are figures in the background in Brussels and Strasbourg who are Inthrall to policies which have at its centre the Sutherland doctrine, its a long term plan, independence is being fished up bit by bit and the notion of nation states is being eroded more and more , at this stage we are well on the way to a EU superstate with it's own military and all that entails... The dice is loaded, we gained a lot from the EU down through the years but there'll be a price to pay when we end up with a bobtailed cheque not too far down the road