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

No it won't. A small minority have been saying that for the last twenty years or so. The citizens of UK were stupid enough to belief they'd be better off out of the EU and to have "full control of their borders". How's that working out for them now? Once the UK left and everyone else has seen that they in the exact same position as they were before has made it fairly clearly that leaving the EU won't do ****.

Yes, of course. If they aren't issued the person is legally.allowed stay. That's certainly not going to improve the situation.

Over the Christmas holidays we headed for the west coast as we have done on previous years. Its getting harder all the time to find budget friendly accommodation, such as bnb's and small hotels. I stayed in a bnb in a tourist town on the wild atlantic way last summer so i checked their website but they are not taking any bookings now. Drive around these towns and there are plenty of bnb's with the lights on but "no vacancies" signs outside.

If i was in that business, i might find it hard to resist the low hanging fruit the government are offering. But its having an effect on tourism and the cafes, pubs, restaurants, bike hire, boat hire etc. All the things that keep life in rural tourist areas. The war in Ukraine has stalled and could go on for years so permanent damage is being done to tourism. The government dont seem to consider the effects this is having on host communities.

RTE have some “paid” asylum do gooder on now explaining why we have to adopt all these poor asylum seekers allegedly fleeing horrific circumstances.

Keep in mind too that legal migration from the EU was spun by Vote Leave and the right wing press as being a huge 'crisis' for the UK. It wasn't "unvetted males" that had them in a tizzy, but migrant workers from Europe wanting to move to Britain, work hard and pay taxes. Brexit was the end result of listening to the shameless grifters and bigots of the far right.

Colm O'Mongain's show just now re migrants IMV completely misses the point.

I only listened to a bit of it, as I am sick of the bleeding heart propaganda that often comes out of motormouth O'Mongain.

We all know there are people fleeing awful things and all that, but the question is why HERE? I often wonder why so many of these people make a conscious decision to trek all the way to this outpost of Europe. That is the question that is never asked. Because we all know the answer.

Dr Joan 🤔

Re the change of use of many smaller hotels here towards migrant accommodation, I read something the other day about Tourism Ireland's new policy. Yes the drumbeats roll to counteract the complaints about tourism being affected by such closures. What is the policy you ask? Yep, attract the rich and abandon the budget traveller. I am not one bit surprised at this. It is merely saying it's ok to close down budget accommodation to facilitate IP and the like, because we will from now on only market Ireland to the "high end" overseas traveller. Says nothing about domestic tourism at all.

Isn't this unbelievable or is it just me who is thinking, aha follow the Government policy and all will be well tourism wise. I should be gobsmacked but it's hard to be shocked by much anymore.

New Tourism Ireland plan targets ‘higher-end’ overseas visitors – The Irish Times

Legal immigration, those here on work and "education" permits, is obviously putting a huge strain on accommodation and services.

This is a point being acknowledged in more and more surprising quarters. Mary Lou made the connection in an interview on Christmas Eve. There's an article in todays Indo where the writer almost inadvertently connects the two.

The government is bringing in changes to the offering being made to newly arrived Ukrainians (It doesn't seem to have crossed their mind how that immediately raises questions about the offering being made to Ukrainians already here.)

The same ones who had conniption fits at people chanting "Get them out" outside DP centres now seem to have no compunction about having refugees camp out in life threatening weather when it suits their purpose and sends a signal abroad.

The government are attempting to split off refugees from the general immigrant population in the public mind. If the numbers of refugees are small relative to the numbers of "good" immigrants then the immigration problem must be small. Let's see how that goes for them.

I wouldn't be drawing attention to grifters because they are not exclusive to the right. In fact we have many prominent pro migration ones that are regulars in media making good state sponsored coin from this **** show.

How many over the last 30 years .

Removing 1800 people means 1800 who don't need accommodation, medical and school places,

it helps

No, but it will slightly reduce the demand for accomm.

Also, and importantly, it will send a signal to other AS making bogus claims that we are not a soft-touch.

The tourism industry is being dismantled. It is broadly being replaced by the asylum seeker industry. The rest is being carved up between a small number of rich people.

For instance, there is now large scale bussing of people from long distance to the cliffs of moher. The ciffs of moher is now run like and feels like a military camp for ruthlessly extracting money from people. Almost no benefit to the local area, they do not stay or eat in Clare outside of the tiny number of 'connected' locations. At its best, Clare was receiving tourists on a budget, but there were loads of them and they spent locally in a huge variety of businesses. Rich tourists will only benefit a tiny number of businesses, well connected cronies again.

So so correct. The west of Clare had a disastrous tourist season. Hotels in Ballyvaughan and Lisdoonvarna given over to migrants and tourist shops closing or doing very poorly. Busses ferrying in visitors, mostly from Galway, some from Limerick. I hadn't identified it as official policy but maybe ...............................