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

You're conflating two issues.

I see almost no one who has a problem with legal immigration. We all work with plenty of men and women who've come from abroad. People who have come here through legal channels and are paying their own way, supporting their families. It's very disingenuous of you to say people are complaining about that.

What people are really furious is people coming here illegally and making dubious asylum claims. When you look at people here who are paying astronomical costs to rent or buy a place, of course it's going to destabilize social cohesion if you start giving them handouts. This isn't small beer either, government spending is increasing significantly, and that ain't because we are getting better health or education facilities!

Oh and one final thing. We don't blame the asylum seekers themselves. They are only doing what any logical person in their situation would do. I personally blame the government for their incompetent mishandling of all this.

Again not true.

You're confusing economic migration with asylum seeking,

Economic migrants who go to Australia and Ireland must show they can support themselves. So a doctor or nurse you may see in a hospital, or a foreign taxi driver you meet has been through a rigorous process of vetting and financial checking to be permitted to come here.

An Irish person going to Australia must go through a process.

Asylum seekers are different and both Ireland and Australia are bound by international treaties to accept them.

As of 31/01/24 32,40 refugees were awaiting a decision whilst 77,064 who had been refused a permanent visa were still in the country awaiting appeal or judicial review.

https://www.asyluminsight.com/refugees-and-people-seeking-asylum-in-the-australian-community

These people are all being cared for at the cost of the Australian state. No different to Ireland.

The amount of misinformation people believe about refugees without checking facts is frightening.

A lot of the stuff you say is urban myth based on nothing but anecdotes and twitter bile.

However there is a process and if it turns out their asylum claim is not genuine then they get deported. It's very simple.

In the meantime, whilst being processed, they have a right to be here as asylum seekers and the state must look after them.

You said yesterday that you acknowledged the majority were non genuine asylum seekers as per the department of justice.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/secret-department-of-justice-paper-urged-swift-renewal-of-deportations/a725249983.html

The department of justice may be lying or the situation changed but nevertheless you made your position known. Again, I'm not judging the desperate circumstance that might drive someone to sleep in a tent on mount Street but rather trying to follow your logic.

Is there a difference between someone falsely claiming asylum and an illegal immigrant?

"However there is a process and if it turns out their asylum claim is not genuine then they get deported."

Would ya get out of it - this is ridiculous. Even those involved in running the system and those politically in charge admit that this process is brutally slow, open to appeals, open to applicants just disappearing into the black economy. Virtually no one is or has been deported. The numbers are tiny.

You're the one with the myths!

The numbers range up and down, but it is a numbers game ultimately.

If you have 10,000 asylum seekers and lets say 7,000 are legit and 3,000 are fake, that's manageable, and even the 3000 can be accommodated in the short term.

If you have 100,000 asylum seekers and 30,000 are illegal that's a whole other ball game. The system now becomes overwhelmed and all asylum decisions, positive or negative are delayed, and the 30,000 are unlikely to be deported anytime soon, while the legit ones are also left in limbo.

But to answer your original point, not all migrants are legitimate asylum seekers.

So that would be a yes then.

What's frightening is that practically nothing you are saying is frightening is true.

much bigger populations

well, yes, because until proven otherwise every asylum seeker is exercising a legal right to claim asylum.

should their claim be rejected, for whatever reasons, and they do not leave the country, they are then illegal.

it is in everyones interests to speed up decisions on all claims, to months.

You can't just flick a switch and increase supply rapidly. It takes years if not decades to significantly increase supply in this country. The planning is a farce and there's a shortage of skilled tradespersons, an area we should actually encourage immigration in, rather than unskilled workers.

i agree, and i believe that they should have started around 14 years ago, but if they dont start now, it will take longer again.

We're back to this again…

The reality is that many of the people arriving here claiming asylum, are in fact economic migrants who are trying to circumvent the processes we do have for processing the latter. Why is this? Likely because they already know that they wouldn't qualify under those rules.

It's made even more outrageous and obvious when it emerges that they are "fleeing" countries like France, Germany or the UK.

You and others can keep leaning on decades old agreements made in the aftermath of WW2 or keep talking about our "obligations", but laws and agreements can - and are - changed rapidly when the situation demands (look at how quickly McEntee moved this week to try and enable legislation to return asylum seekers to the UK) and this is no different.

Unfortunately because of the actions of these chancers (because that's what misrepresenting your actual status/claim is - chancing your arm), our ability and capacity (and indeed public willingness) to accept genuine asylum seekers has been seriously diminished in the process. Those are the real victims - not economic migrants skipping through Europe in search of the best deal.

Regardless, the majority of Irish people have had enough as many recent polls and indeed increasing numbers of protests indicate. That ultimately is what matters. As natives and citizens of this country we absolutely have a right to expect our concerns to be heard, be acted upon by the politicians we elect to represent us, and to have those same interests placed above all others. That's a fundamental part of the social contract in a modern democracy.

If that means changing laws - or even just exercising options/opt-outs we already have available to is - then that's what needs to be done.

Once we fix our own problems and take care of our own needs, then maybe we can worry about others - it's that simple and it's because we no longer have the ability to do both thanks to this mess.

Australia is actively seeking and has done for years skilled irish teachers, nurses, doctors and police officers. This is planned and sustainable migration where people are invited in, paid significant salaries, pay taxes, and are able to pay their way largely without reliance on the state.

Completely different to hundreds of people turning up and camping outside an IPO office in Sydney.

There's no comparison.

Not sure if you watch those reality TV Australian border control programs. When someone shows up from a safe country without proper documents, they send them home on the next plane, without letting them leave the airport.

Your right and that's why Australia will begin enforcing tougher visa rules for foreign students this year as official data showed migration hit another record high, which is likely to further exacerbate an already tight housing market.

This will stop/slow down Irish students from leaving Ireland for a couple of years to gain experience in their fields of expertise. They will all ( highly educated students ) have to stay in Ireland, which suits me, as I am all for keeping my children here.