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

i don't see why this should be seen as a far out plan. The idea that we just let any tom, dick or harry into the country and they can just aimlessly walk out of centres within a couple of days of arriving is madness.

It'll grow larger. I think it was a mistake for Harris to say that there'll be no shanty towns.

He or anyone can't possibly control on a minute by minute basis the actions of a group of a few hundred people.

If that area of the canal was cleared right this minute, what's to stop NGOs giving tents out tomorrow and a group organising to set up on another area of the canal (or phoenix park or church grounds or wherever)

I think specifically, the canal is a difficult one. The tents are on grass verges at the minute. The land is managed by waterways Ireland. The only law I can see is it's illegal to pitch a tent for more than a week in the same location on a canal path.

Even if..IF after a week, action is taken by waterways Ireland, that probably involves a court order or something. Say that's successful after a week, then time getting council in to move the tents and so on...

All of it to be done for tents to emerge the next day a few 100m away and the process to begin again?

That's no solution.

There will be tents so long as there'll be either 1) applicants coming without the facilities to house them

or

2) so long as there are people or organisations willing to facilitate the pitching of tents in order to keep the issue in the media and use it as a platform to demand x,y or z. (The pessimist in me includes a demand for an increase in funding for these organisations that have a board and pay staff members salaries)

Just in case there's any confusion either, I'm not anti immigrant. I think diversity is an education and the spice of life.

I'm making a point specifically in relation to why the tent situation isn't going to end, and it's foolish of politicians or senior civil servants to put an absolute temporary band aid that clearly doesn't account for human actions and motives and people will clearly set up elsewhere within a day.

It's a symptom of the failed system we have, moving the tents in a cat and mouse game is 1% of the problem and the one you should be addressing last.

The govt needs to make the big boy decisions surrounding entry in the first place, speed of decision and implementation of rejections.

At the moment, anyone can come, govt know there's nowhere to put them and while waiting can pitch a tent. If the system was changed, the tents wouldn't be there in the first place.

Moving them every so often while addressing none of the other moving parts of our asylum process achieves absolutely nothing.

No resources are being 'diverted' anywhere - the country is operating a budget surplus and has done for the last three years i.e. we have money in the national exchequer that is not even being spent.

Do they not publish the figures on how many are in indefinite detention?

I've been looking and can't find them.

”we wouldn’t have Deliveroo drivers” Drivers are being paid peanuts and are often in dangerous conditions just to deliver burgers to people. Maybe Deliveroo isn’t the best example of how society is improved

And again, legal migration through the correct means is a good thing. I’m just not sure I’d use Deliveroo as an example

Agree with most of this and lots of fair points.

The only thing I disagree with is that the speed of rejections, threshold for rejection etc is the solution.

Housing capacity to house the residual approved applications is the only way to prevent homelessness/tents on the street.

Stronger entry conditions, strict deportations etc of course helps, but when all is said and done, there will always be a number of approved applicants that we agree to accommodate.

The first focus should be on projecting those numbers and then making sure we have the accommodation for them, if we want to ensure that tent cities dont spring up across the land.

It's just bad management by an out of touch Government and an untouchable senior civil service..

That is an outrageous, disingenuous and arrogant comment. And just goes to show how out of touch some are with current day realities in Ireland.

There are many groups of Irish citizens suffering mostly silently due to lock of investment in all the things we know about. And here we see a disgraceful and insulting comment that 'no resources are being diverted'. Apparently it's all magic money and magic resources and magic time that are being dispensed into looking after the needs of people who've no business being here, who are not Irish citizens and to whom we have very, very limited duty of care.

I am no apologist for Roderic O'Gorman but his department has been left to deal with this problem while the rest of the government looked away. Now it has gotten to the stage where it literally cannot be ignored and is being picked up by international news agencies and the whole of government has to deal with it or at least acknowledge it is a problem. The signs were all there, we are about 2 years behind Germany and Sweden and are going to end up like them unless something drastic does not happen soon to control the numbers coming into Ireland illegally - But what to do with the border we have with a non-EU country ? I do not have the answer but presumably the reason we elect the government is for them to deal with difficult issues on our behalf and in our best interests. It is hard not to conclude that the goverment have failed thusfar.

Where is the evidence that money is being "diverted" because of asylum seekers? The asylum process would be very expensive at the best of times and budgeted for and we are operating a budget surplus of around €8bn per year. Also, money spent on accommodating asylum seekers is still going back into the economy by indirect means.

This is the old Brexity "let's leave the EU and send £350m a week to the NHS instead" stuff being rehashed. I'm not arguing that it is a good thing that money is being spent on all this, but there is no evidence that resources that would have gone to schools and hospitals and essential services etc is not being spent because of the current asylum system situation.

Where are the #2 going?

The next cohort to make piles of money

500 million people in the EU are entitled to come here.

That is more than enough in my view for a tiny island nation.

In my view even that has to stop.

Skilled migrants only.

People that are not dependant on welfare. No more handouts. Time to get real!