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

Legal immigrants bringing vital skills and manpower to struggling sectors here are highly regarded and encouraged. I've never seen or heard anyone say otherwise. This has been beaten to death and is just killing the debate.

I had a severe acute illness last year which landed me in hospital for three weeks. Out of easily 20 professionals I had caring for me in that time, a minority were actually Irish. All my doctors, aside from one Eastern European and a Nigerian in training, were Middle Eastern. And again most of the duty nurses working my ward were Indian and Filipino. Each of the staff were a credit to themselves, especially with the pressure they're under, couldn't do enough for me and I'll be forever grateful for their lifesaving care. I even included each of their names in a letter of thanks I wrote to the hospital after I was released, and I hope it got back to them. I hope for all our sakes immigrants like these keep coming to Ireland - worth their weight in gold and more than justifying of support for housing.

The issue is with the thousands of unskilled economic migrants gaming the asylum system, ending up as a life burden on the State and with nothing to offer back to the country, nor any intention of doing.

Plus we have a literal working example of what happens a few years down the line in Sweden if we continue as is and pretend it's all brilliant and we are saving the world.

There are reports that the government have said that the 50 are going into Gannons regardless of the locals. Someone on Twitter said it was mentioned on today fm. Today is going to be very interesting.

Most western societies don't normally distinguish between people in the way you are proposing i.e. first class citizens and second class citizens. People who live in a country legally all have the exact same rights, whether citizens of the state or not. Actively favouring citizens of the country over residents who are non citizens would be blatant discrimination (and probably completely illegal under Irish law).

We saw this type of rampant discrimination against Catholics / nationalists in Northern Ireland in the 1960s. Protestants / unionists were prioritised for everything, including housing.

Literally everywhere besides the enlightened western Europe does exactly what you claim they don't. They have strict entry requirements and don't just give free welfare to everybody that arrives taking a chance and claiming asylum when they are fleeing nothing.

Whatever about refugees or asylum seekers, the government cannot prioritise housing for Irish citizens over residents of the State who don't hold an Irish passport.....that would be straight into blatant discrimination territory.

Agreed, but yet only irish citizens can vote in a General Election.

A tax paying, employment generating, EU citizen resident in Ireland, still can't vote for a govt in a country they may have lived in for decades.

So there is a level of discrimination between citizens and non-citizens.

Why not? Why is it discrimination? Do other EU countries hold this high standard? Can I go to Romania, France or Germany and expect housing ahead of its natural born citizens? Genuine question...

From which we can deduce that immigration is implicit in the housing crisis. Therefore if anything, higher than the 25% it received on the topical items for elections given housing crisis was a separate option.

I'm assuming people are talking about social housing here? But I believe that is only around 9% or 10% of houses in Ireland, so even if the government went down the route of prioritising Irish citizens, it wouldn't make as big a dent into the current housing problems as people might think.

Maybe you're assuming wrong. These immigration policies are impacting not just on social housing but rents and a whole range of services. Have you missed the memo - it was 'OK' when it was only those on lower incomes and partic those in cities who were affected. Now it's the middle classes and people in rural towns and villages. Big shift.

Ballinrobe to house families now not single males.

Is that not sexist towards single males?

Not really. That seems more like a compromise to me.