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

Why do politicians never refer to the epic over-population of the planet and its impact on resource depletion and pollution? The Earth's biophysical limits were crossed decades ago.

Countries, like Ireland, with stable or falling birthrates should urgently be looking at ways to adapt their economic systems within their ecological limits. And countries with high birthrates need to find ways of lowering them. To think that economic growth can continue forever is magical thinking.

There is a great deal of economic and social injustice in the big picture but there is no chance of finding solutions while the global population continues to explode. Cries of 'more houses' fail to take account of the bigger picture. Even sand (required for concrete) is running out.

Ukrainians are not classed as 'asylum seekers', as they haven't claimed asylum (even though they are actual refugees fleeing a war). They are here under the EU's 'Temporary Protection Directive', designed to facilitate the sudden arrival of a large number of refugees in one go.

I think the distinction is because they are from a European country and prospective EU member state. Also and because of this, they haven't 'permanently' moved to Ireland with no intention of ever returning to Ukraine - quite a few people who arrived after February 2022 did indeed subsequently return home.

As for the numbers, there are clearly far more people from Ukraine here than there are IPAs in the country.

How do you solve a housing shortage? How have governments don't it in the past?

build homes.

Although the world population contrinues to rise, and will do so for several more years, you will be reassured to hear that fertility rates have and are falling in many, many countries.

Why doesn't the government temporarily suspend the asylum process, at least at Dublin airport, and force the airlines to return people who destroy their documents, like what happens when you arrive in a country without a valid visa? A temporary suspension until we sort out our own house, and have space in dedicated processing centers to actually host new asylum applicants?

And for the inevitable responses regarding our international obligations - EU countries brought in temporary border controls between Schengen countries during the refugee crisis - again it doesn't have to be permanent. Surely its the logical thing to do, when we are literally giving people tents to sleep on the streets?

This question has been asked and answered several times already.

What you see on tv when people show up without a valid visa isn't really applicable to the asylum process. Most people in the invalid visa situation will simply turn around and willingly go on the return flight. From what I can gather, if there's any doubt on the person being refused entry from the flight origin country, both immigration services will work together to find a country earlier in the person's journey who will accept them. The airlines will simply facilitate the person on the flight, they don't actually deal with any of the legalities of the situation.

What some countries, such as Australia and the US do, is to have a pre-clearance system to make it next to impossible for anyone to board a flight to their country who might seek asylum. I'm not sure how that would work in Ireland being within the CTA and EU. If it was possible I'd imagine it would have no affect on immigration other that to make the process slower and more bureaucratic for people who wanted to travel into and out of the country in general. Anyone wanting to claim asylum could come through without documentation anyway as we have an open border with NI.

TLDR: Ryanair doesn't have a convenient solution.

I don't think you understood me.If someone is arriving without documentation, ie, without valid proof they can enter the country, then the airline that they arrived in with should return them to their point of departure. Most airlines refuse to bring someone who doesn't display valid proof they can enter the destination country, as they will be stuck trying to bring them back. If I try to fly to Thailand without a visa, the airline must bring me back.

And a temporary suspension of the asylum process, would mean rejection for someone landing without documentation claiming asylum, as we don't have the ability to accommodate any more applications.

The open border with Northern Ireland obviously makes stopping all undocumented entries impossible, but you can make it more difficult as a deterrent. Perfect is the enemy of good after all.

Unfortunately it isn't quite as simple as that. Infrastructure is needed first. Things like water for example.

And water is just one thing. You can't just go building houses anywhere, things like GPs, school places etc will be required.

All of those things need to be planned for and sorted before we start building tens of thousands of houses and the water issue alone could take years to remedy.

That is what makes the current situation unsustainable. If it keeps going as is there'll be thousands more living in tents in Dublin and probably in other cities too.

If an asylum seeker somehow manages to get on a flight to Ireland, that's it. They're here and they have the right to apply for asylum even though they may have broken the law to get here. Very few people are sent back on the flights they got off.

Even if airport officers know that the asylum seeker already has asylum in another EU country, they still cannot send them back to that country. What happens is the officers will register the arrival, take finger prints, and get a taxi for the asylum seeker to go into Dublin and stay in accommodation (if there is any available. Also, our taxi bill must be enormous!).

The asylum seeker is also given an appointment to attend the International Protection Office (IPO) where their application will be considered in detail. This process takes ages of course and then there are appeals until such a point that we just give up and let them stay in Ireland on "Stamp 4" (a pathway to citizenship and the same permission we would give to say the non-European wife of an Irish person).

In cases where the IPO rejects someone's appeals, we still don't physically deport them.

If the asylum seeker already has asylum in some other EU country, then we can ask that country if they will take charge of the asylum seeker again. That country usually says no (unless, I imagine, it's Ireland. I'm sure we take our escaped asylum seekers back no probs!).

The asylum seeker always gets to enter Ireland and walk around freely once they can get themselves here. Some may try to go to the UK and then claim asylum there.

This is why we must do all we can to ensure that chancers cannot board planes in the first place. And this is where increasing our visitor visas comes into play. A visitor visa is pre-authorisation to present at our border. Airlines will not allow a passenger to board without a valid visitor visa if indeed the passenger requires a visitor visa, because airlines are fined for allowing this to happen. Granted, airline staff can make mistakes and sometimes they don't know which nationalities need visitor visas, so they let the certain people board planes by mistake.

Also, to get around visitor visas, asylum seekers will often use fake EU passports to board flights. Then they dispose of these documents. So this is why airline staff need to be better trained and better technology is needed to identify fake documents. Again, this will prevent chancers from getting on flights in the first place.

30,000 people died trying to cross the Mediterranean in the last ten years.

Do you really think they'll be deterred by having to get a flight into Belfast and the bus across the border, instead of flying direct to Dublin?

Sorry you wasted all that time typing but this really isn't a good idea, at most it's a token gesture that'll just put hassle and cost on all the other people coming in and out of the country.

Are young men in your area lining up to enter the construction industry like they used to in the past?

They certainly aren't in mine.

I've worked on sites and while the money is good it can wreck the body over time and people these days are better educated and there are easier options with better salaries out there for them.

Do I need to spell it out for you that with a labour shortage in the construction industry your bright idea of "build homes" is pie in the sky stuff similar to what the likes of PBP would come out with.

Thanks.

This suggests we should have visas for all non-EU countries, except maybe the USA?

For the reasons above I'll be voting SF or SF.

Nothings going to change on immigration anyway so why waste a vote, or worse, vote for someone who'll join another FFG government.