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

i dont necessarily disagree but our corporate tax issues has nothing to do with us opting out of the migration pact.

Yeah...had a look there on Twitter and by "all kicking off" it would appear that this means a handful of people banging car bonnets and shouting "black and tan", "traitor" and "you're not Irish" at workers / Gardai.

If you go to work and you have people there screaming this stuff at you, and you know they are posting it online, I don't think it's all that hard to see why a guy would cover his face or even conceal their license plate to avoid being identified.

But of course, the protesters are the ones being intimidated.

My point is though that the referendum campaign itself would be ugly. Immigration is pretty much the central plank of the manifestos of the far right, so such a referendum would be fought in an atmosphere of bitterness and rancour - no government in their right mind would hold such a referendum (we saw what happened in the UK with the Brexit poll, i.e. families and friends falling out with each other - an Irish immigration referendum would be ten times nastier).

Agreed.

I mean, you only have to look towards Covid and travel restrictions to get a taste of the opposite end of the spectrum to freedom of movement and the ability to cross borders. The measures introduced during the pandemic turned out to be some of the most effective measures (probably the single most effective measure) ever introduced in terms of actually significantly lowering migration to developed countries.

The difference of course was that all of those countries had a singular aligned interest to implement the same policies at the exact same time — something which is very hard to do, especially in the mosaic of borders that makes up Europe.

That's not to say that you need Covid-style travel restrictions to tackle migration, but there does need to be an acknowledgement that the very things that make migration easier are things we actually like to have on-demand for ourselves — flights, boats, trains, international travel generally. So there is a question for people to weigh up as to how much a radical shift in direction on migration could / should involve downsides for us all. This is something that the migration-sceptic parties and media don't like to talk about — whereby tackling migration can only ever be painted as invariably beneficial.

I don't know, they lost a lot of support for staying quiet or siding with FFG on immigration and the two failed referendums, Mary Lou has become very hated, might be time for a leader review and replacement

If far right parties end up in power the current political parties have only themselves to blame.

They have no leverage over us, us opting out would not even register with the EU. They have far bigger issues - ie Poland.

If you actually believe people would currently, you are as out of touch as the current government.

Yeah but it's one thing to say "they should have managed their external borders better" and another thing entirely to consider how that can actually feasibly be done and the sheer level of effort and co-ordination that is going to require.

Of all the developed world, Europe probably has the least favourable geopolitical circumstances to tackle irregular migration. We are close to North Africa, reachable from the Middle East and bordering the Balkans. To make things even worse — we have Russia and its satellite Belarus in the East — who are hostile to Western interests and only too happy to continue to destabilise the western EU borders and allow migrant crossings as they have done in the past. The idea that it all just comes down to weak-kneed, soft hearted leftie liberals trying to save the world seems to usually be held in ignoranceof these geopolitical realities.

This is one reason why the Pact is to my mind a significant step in the right direction towards a more cohesive, unified approach.

But the reality remains, and will always remain, that securing the entire length of the EUs external borders perpetually without weakness or flaw is simply never going to happen. So you need a system where some level of burden is shared, otherwise the external border countries are left overwhelmed, which only incentivises them to do nothing about migrants moving somewhere else in the EU. Then you are left with a question about the EU's internal borders.

The problem with Mary Lou is that she is just another political wind bag, all bark no bite. She has SF flopping around like a dead fish backing any cause that might get them a few votes and in doing so has alienated a lot of their supporters.

Has backed nearly everything the government has done, then come out after the damage is done saying oh we are actually against it.

Current political parties only have themselves to blame? So if the mainstream parties don't fall in behind these demands to 'close the border' and 'send them back' it's their own fault?

Even though those are just empty slogans?

I imagine the mainstream parties will actually fall in line and make these promises, the problem will be implementing them.

Poland is currently trying and failing with it's wall/fence with Belarus, it's actually a smaller border than that linking us to NI but even with 2,500 surveillance cameras and 10,000 soldiers on duty people are still crossing with impunity.

https://balkaninsight.com/2024/02/29/poland-fence-in-the-swamp/

Poland has a series issue with Russia and Belarus using it to facilitate migrants and destabilize the EU. It's going to be difficult to reach agreement with the wider EU. What they really don't need is a relatively wealthy country like Ireland, with all our tax benefits, coming along and deciding they don't want into the pact either.

Left, right, anifa, all rubbish. I'm called an open border campaigner, even though I want more restrictions then other posters

Im called left on this thread, right on another thread.

It's hard to imagine any country in Europe would hold a referendum on immigration in the current climate. It would be like holding one on the Israel-Gaza conflict. Too many bad actors would get involved and it would be beyond divisive - everyone would be at each other's throats.