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

Would you have a source for this by chance?

The dogs on the Heywood Road know .

No source for that first part but yes that locals are upset about the fact that 300 refugees appear to getting priority housing over those homeless in the town or those on housing waiting lists .

But that immediate area he as had numerous problems with the travellers on that site over the years .

Just to note I edited that post see above .

Bean counters 🤣 the annual health budget goes up and up every single year Furze. It's off the charts at the moment. €21.4bn last year, compared to €14.1bn in 2013. A 50% increase in a decade.

I disagree. Nurses and doctors have been leaving for decades and the policies of various governments have never changed.

Too shortsighted and always with an eye to the next election and protecting the public purse to adequately pay and staff Irish healthcare as well as many other services .

(Think this is off topic for a refugee thread as these workers are all immigrants on visas .,)

And where are you getting "foreign workers working for comparatively lower wages " ..that simply is not true in public services .Set wages .

Maybe you are thinking Private sector , in US , or Dreamland somewhere ,?!

And finally last pont ..direct opposite to what I and others suggest to keep Irish healthcare workers who also need help with rent and housing if working in expensive cities.

None of your points are correct or a solution .

Do you not understand the basic concept that these nurses are paid IRISH pay rates ?!

But anyone who is a "chancer" will not be granted asylum or a PPS number and cannot legally work in Ireland. Not sure where the problem is?

I have a feeling Fianna Fail are gearing up to pull the plug on this Government. They absolutely know we are up **** creek and by pulling the plug at least they would get a start on FG and curry some favour back with the public.

Very strong comments at the parliamentary meeting this evening. " The public wants to see planes carrying migrants being deported and leaving the State" was even uttered

30000 AS expected this year - up from previous forcast of 20000. We are ducked if no strong action is taken i.e deportations.

They are very quiet lately and limelight seeking Harris is too silly to see it.

Was listening to drive time earlier and there was a piece on it about "essential migrant workers" and the fact they can't bring their partner and child(ren) over here to live.

Some of the careers mentioned were farm workers, meat factories workers and restaurant workers, are migrants really essential for those roles?

Young medical graduates and nurses could and should have been given rent free accommodation for a year or two to incentivise them to stay. But no no planning whatsoever.

The only thing I heard was foreign doctors who could not get visas for their families to join them .

If we're prioritising anyone, it should be people in camps in countries adjacent to active warzones and within that cohort, it should be family units parents and u18 children. Fixed numbers every year which lend themselves to planning.

Anyone who enters the country without a visa or overstays a visa or worse still with no passport after boarding multiple international flights should be bottom of the list. Anyone who has the financial wherewithal to cross half the world, bottom of the list. Clients of people traffickers, bottom of the list.

They keep wages down because if they were not available to work Irish authorities would have to improve conditions for nurses here. They don't have to deal with the lack of people who want to be nurses in Ireland because they can import other people to make up the shortfall.

Immigration supresses wages by increasing the supply of labour so existing workers have less bargaining power. More people willing to do the job. Lower pay and conditions.

T

Of course we don't know for sure except by comparing rates of increase before and after they came .

There was a strike a few years before which resulted in improved pay and more grades to nursing , specialist nurse etc along with improved access to degree and master's level courses and ensuring nurses were credited for their courses and experience .

This meant nursing in Ireland was pretty set up for a good few years , if the crash hadn't happened and agreements were stalled .

Indian and Filipino nurses were here well before the crash and settled in . Given help with accommodation initially .

But once here and absorbed in the workforce , they were the same as the rest of us ..living, working and paying their own way .

The following year and every other year after that , as before , Irish nurses emigrated and continued to emigrate / return , cyclically .Numbers of nurses from abroad arriving to work here have never been as high as in those first couple of years .

Many saw soon enough it was a tough gig and moved on to elsewhere unless their families joined them and they set down roots .

Our pay rates were all slashed during the crash with FEMPI only just being phased out now 15 years later .

And as the poster above who feels public services get too much , rates of increases are jealously guarded in case of a back lash from the electorate .

There is no danger rates of pay or conditions would have improved over that period of time regardless of foreign healthcare workers .

And I could not countenance people saying we could or should do without them .

This makes no sense .

We would have literally had to close hospitals without them .

So how many are ' imported ' every year then ?

I have given my view which is from the coalface so to speak .

There is no way we could have managed after the crash without them with the considerable numbers of Irish nurses who left because their partners or husband's were unemployed .

Maybe pay rates after would have gone up faster .don't know .I can only say we could not have gotten through without them and most people working in healthcare, unless they are a bit thick really , don't differentiate .

If you are working a mad busy unit with skeleton staff and you get a relief nurse from another part of the hospital , you don't notice whether they are Irish , English or Indian , you just say "thank you.. can you look after this group of patients?!"

No, once you have a significant portion of your workforce as immigrant workers, you can't suddenly get rid of them all and expect things to run smoothly. That is true.

But that is not what is being suggested. What is being suggested is that immigrant workers have had the effect of keeping pay and conditions relatively low. Without them, the State would have had to pay more to Irish-trained nurses over the years, to keep them in the country and attract more to do the training. And, of course, more would have had to be put into expanding training.