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

Ukrainians have been here for nearly 2 years getting free money and housing without having to declare any income or savings unlike the native population, how long more will this go on for?

As an 80s kid I got to experience the radical societal changes brought to us curtesy of American and UK TV, and the absolute bewilderment of the older generation who actually believed in the supernatural forced on them by a religious dictatorship, that's why we veered slightly left of centre, at this stage of my life I'd like to move back to the centre

Essentially if you're left or right wing you're an idiot

You can watch the dail on TV for proof, check out paul and his scarf

Those radio ads fill the coffers of the media companies... what better way to keep everyone on message but throw loads of money at them to tell us it's safe to go to Bingo again...

Wouldn't imagine Gript are getting any of that money.

I don't think it's so much a "drift back towards right-wing..politics" in Poland, more a case of the Poles starting their path towards a modern democratic, independent society a few decades after us. The Catholic church was bitterly hostile to the Communist regime in Poland during the Cold War and consequently was a conduit for much of the anti-Government agitation and activism throughout the 1980s. The likes of Lech Walesa et al were devout Catholics in much the same way that many of our own revolutionary generation were.

If there is one sure way to turn a people away from Catholicism it's to let the church have hegemony over its people and society in lock-step with a compliant government. It breeds arrogance and presumption among the clergy, a feeling that "we're in charge now because the people have looked up to us and WANT us to be their expression of moral and social order". It's hardly surprising. It's an example of "to the victor belongs the spoils".

What is the long-term result? In the 1990s, the authority of the church in Ireland began to crumble. They "lost" the divorce referendum, they became the subject of numerous inquiries into child sexual abuse and bad practices in social care (orphanages, mother and baby homes, Magdalen Laundries etc). They no longer had the ear of those in power. Think about it: independent Ireland did in about 70 years what the British had been trying to do for 500 years--since the days of Henry VIII--destroy the power of the Catholic Church.

They couldn't do it. Henry couldn't do it. His daughter Elizabeth couldn't do it. Neither could Cromwell or King Billy. Nor the Penal Laws nor the hideous condescension of the Victorians and Edwardians. But when we no longer needed the church as a conduit for opposition to the powers that be and they misinterpreted our parents' and grandparents' devotion as the unquestioned obedience to which they the church felt they were entitled as of right, it all fell apart. Slowly, slowly then all at once. Because it was our idea.

The Poles are in many ways the Irish of 50 years ago. Catholic culture, soundly taught in the practical skills that drive the building trade. Rapidly modernising to embrace modern technologies and digital age business and society. And most of them are dead sound too. It seems like they have a few John Charles Mc Quaids at the moment as well. (Google him if you are too young to remember. He was a C**T!) They'll throw all that off before too long. Give it another 20 -30 years.

Nice business

There's jobs on offer left right and centre, it makes no sense that young healthy people like most of the ukrainians are shouldn't be told to start working and contributing to this country which took them in.

Lets call a spade a spade, the majority of them are never going back there so its time to stop giving them free money to sit around all day and get them working.

But the Government knows it has at most only a year left in office so nothing will change IMO.

That can be said about own

Double post.

It's only a matter of time before that's exactly what happens with the way things are going.

As for blame - actually I do blame them, in exactly the same way as I blame our own work-shy cohort.

These are not stupid people (native or otherwise) . They know exactly what they're doing. Our own lot probably know the benefits system better than many of the staff in the Department, and likewise the word is out internationally on the freebies on offer here, and if those opportunists abroad haven't heard of it that way, I'm sure they'll have picked it up from social media groups, or friends/relatives already here.

Why else would anyone travel across a continent (or more) and in the main leave already safe refuge to come to a small island on the edge of Europe where they'll be likely put up in a hostel if they're lucky or tent if they're not.

Why would people genuinely in fear of their lives and who've already suffered massive upheaval and loss then want to leave the place they've found shelter in to come to that scenario?

Why would they then want to go back to that same place that they were forced to leave for a holiday - but only so long as they can come back afterwards.

The answer is simple.. They're not a genuine refugee. They're an economic migrant posing as a refugee and just as our own welfare-abusing cohort should be identified and sanctioned, so too should these chancers be cut off and preferably sent back to wherever they arrived from, or anywhere else that'll have them.

Their actions, like those of our own chancers, undermine the needs of the genuinely struggling people who DO deserve our sympathy and support (insofar as is reasonable and sustainable - two things which have been thrown out completely in the last 20 months or so). They can absolutely be blamed for their wilful and opportunistic abuse of the situation, and treated accordingly.

Cut them off or reduce them to a bare minimum amount, prosecute them to claw back the monies they claimed illegitimately, assign workers to monitor their situation and whereabouts by making them sign on more regularly or doing random visits - all of these things are done all the time to legitimate claimants who then suffer massive stress trying to adapt to being treated like a criminal for only asking for the help they ARE entitled to while they try to find a way out of the situation as quick as possible.

We have to (and should be!) deal(ing) with our own lot of chancers - but we've no obligation to accept or deal with anyone else's. If they're not here as legitimate refugees, then they shouldn't be here at all.

I said it before a few years back that this would become the most serious issue of the next election and here we are - in fact it's such a top issue that it's actually being used as cover by FG and McEntee to force through a very dangerous bill that will silence and prosecute people for voicing legitimate concerns or objections to all this.

But I predicted that too over the last few years. FG in government are actually MORE dangerous than even FF - because they make things fundamentally worse than they found it and what they can't sell off to private interests, they ruin in other ways. All of this has happened under their watch, and they've even managed to make SF a real electoral option for many (just as how they rehabilitated FF in the last election). This is why they're never elected on their own merits, but as a protest vote and only until they remind us why that is!

Unfortunately though me being right means that every ordinary decent worker and citizen in this country who is just trying to get by and provide for their families and the future of their children is going to suffer the consequences of the last 2 years (in reality the last decade at this stage) - a country overrun with people we can't support, many of whom shouldn't even be here in the first place, and at the cost - financially and otherwise - of the supports, security and even stability of a country that we actually DO have a legitimate claim to and interest in.

I'm almost 50 at this stage. I will only see the beginnings of the real problems (as are starting to emerge). It'll be my pre-teen son who'll have to live through it and deal with it as people in the UK, France and Germany are doing now. The country I knew is gone and while yes, there have been massive benefits from legitimate immigration and new cultures travelling, working and integrating here, on balance I fear we'll end up concluding that the costs weren't worth it because we didn't enforce realistic checks and balances, limits and controls to manage the pace and impact that came with it.

Unfortunately this is another prediction that I think I'm going to be right about as well, and I take absolutely no pleasure in it. The worst thing is that it all could have been prevented, but as usual we can't learn from the mistakes of others but have to repeat them ourselves AND add enough of an "Irish twist" to actually make it worse.

I'll be telling my son to work hard in school and take full advantage of his "free" education.. And then try to find the best option to make a life for himself elsewhere - because by that stage it's unlikely to be in the country he was born unfortunately.

It's not going to be a pleasant conversation but unfortunately I don't see any alternatives at this stage. We've passed the point of no return - not just obliviously but actively cheering it on in some cases, and as the saying goes, "there are none so blind as those who will not see".

The supermarkets in my little town are fairly dodgy these days. There's always gangs of only middle aged men, likely Ukrainian going by their language, just sitting around shouting and playing music, with bags upon bags of alcohol.

They always stand right by the entrance screaming and staring at everyone. Likely doing it to assert that they can do what they want.

They're there every single day, from I'd say midday onwards, absolutely obliterated drunk. Any time I pass these shops I see them. These are likely a good chunk of these "refugees". No doubt it's intimidating for the local older folk having to see that hanging around their supermarket entrance.

Brilliant post, same situation here and will be gone with my wife and twelve year old by summer next year, i fear for Ireland' future because we seem to believe that we will avoid all the issues that are hitting England, France, and many German cities (don't know Italy well enough to comment)

Based on what I saw in Italy a couple of years ago, I would say its the worst of the lot.