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

What I don't understand is why the lesser known tds and councillors are going along with it.

Everyone keeps saying that the boys are aiming for the big jobs, but the rest are not going to get those jobs. Are the lower level politicians not afraid that the lads at the top are going to **** off and leave them holding a party that is increasingly despised?

For trade and employment absolutely (but let's not forget that the taxation angle allows far greater profits for these companies too and access to the EU market with an English speaking workforce more aligned to their own culture).

And yes, socially we've seen some benefits of different cultures and ideas integrating with our own (where that integration actually happens), but we're still more aligned with the UK than the rest of Europe culturally.

However this all could have been achieved under the EEC without the political abdication and inference that's come out of its mutation to the EU.

In other words, like some of the other members, Ireland should have joined for sure but on our terms and exercising our opt-outs where the proposals/decisions aren't in our national interests.

There is no European identity and what heritage/history there is between the members is mostly bad or uneasy. Unlike the USA where everyone at least sees themselves as an American above all, it's a notional thing confined to the halls of the Commission. In real terms we're no more "European" than the Italians or the Germans.

Our approach should reflect this.

Your post has nothing whatsoever to do with the post you quoted.

Agreed. We have a situation where Varadkar and co keep insisting we have "obligations" but where the EU can rightly just point right back at Ireland not exercising our opt-outs.

Both sides passing the buck to the other. The only one who loses is Ireland and it's citizens who are left to deal with the fallout.

At least I don't continue on regardless if I don't know something and freely admit it.

It takes more to stand up and admit a mistake than slyly snipe at someone behind their back for having the good grace to apologise .

I guess my biggest fear is that when the realisation comes, it is then that we will see a big swing to extreme politics - left or right

It will make the current far right bogeyman seem like adorable kittens in comparison.

I just don't want to see people reminiscing in 15 years time how easy we all had it when it was just Trump and Wilders we had to deal with.

"Many people don't realise that 70 percent of legislation comes from Europe and that the Dail are only transposing what's decided"

Sean Kelly, FG, MEP in and interview in Dec 23.

He was being asked about running in Kerry but wants to stay where the action is!!! Couldn't agree more that our politicians are more concerned with been seen as good Europeans rather than governing for the people who elect them and pay them. Until that changes we're in dire straits.

This I wonder about.

Something @Spanish Eyes said also..

Is it that people who are looking for cheaper breaks are not indispensable but rather those people are not holidaying at home at the present tine because of high cost of living and reduced disposable income?

Maybe thats why the economic heads aren't jumping up and down about tourism?

They are as Spanish Eyes said keeping the higher end luxury market open.

However the local tourism, restaurants, bars etc rely on ordinary weekend breakers who venture out of their hotels to keep their businesses going...as @Furze99 said.

High end hotels tend to keep their customers closer to home.

That exactly highlights the problem with the EU and our participation in it. I know we have little enough real control over TDs and Councillors as it is, but allowing a bloated often fractured entity like the EU to be deciding the majority of our laws is fundamentally at odds with what we expect of our national representatives.

It's not even that we have to go against EU rules, we just need to exercise our already existing rights to opt out.

But yes, ultimately there's very little consequences that could be enforced on us unless we allow it. We regularly read of eastern members pushing back or just saying no and while there might be some moral outrage from some of the others, ultimately an acceptable (for both sides) settlement is reached - after all, it's supposed to be a coalition of friends and allies not a dictatorship where the economically strong members decide for the rest (even though that's exactly what happened in the financial crisis).

I'm not saying we should leave the EU (I think it'll collapse on its own for the same reasons I mentioned earlier and if/when that does happen we shouldn't be the last ones left), but we should certainly push our own interests more just as those other states do.

There are companies buying up houses for sale in ireland to accommodate asylum seekers. They are getting vast sums of tax payers money for supplying such accommodation and these companies can outbid most Irish people looking for a home. So by default, the Irish government are taking control of huge numbers of houses and Irish will never be allowed to live in them.

Remove whatever offending legislation exists from our own Statute Books. Invite a Constitutional Crisis and let the people of Ireland sort it out.

Would be much easier to just have an Irexit vote. Going down the path of withholding contributions etc will jut lead to removal anyway.

So are you saying that the government are buying housing for refugees? Not just for general housing needs?

Or that corporations using tax loopholes are buying them up and renting them out? Confused.

Again the post that the poster I mentioned was getting upset over was one which was based in the UK not here, about UK government actually buying homes for refugee families. Secondly, baldbear mentioned in another post that UNHCR had '' recommended " this to the government.

Not that it was policy here.

Is this actually happening or are people just worrying about something happening in the UK and thinking it mught happen here?

Again I don't know.. Just asking for some clarity.