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

All of which are now being abused by non vulnerable people and arguably need an update

Did it never occur to you that people often tell little porky pies? Anybody can say what they know is expected of them in an interview situation.

Question: 'What are your views on the LGBT community?' '

Answer (carefully rehearsed): 'I think they're a great bunch of lads/lasses/non-binaries'

I'm sure that the asylum seekers are a mixed bag in their views on homosexuality but cultural attitudes in the places they come from tend to be of the 'down with that sort of thing' variety.

I mean look at Russia (a close neighbour of Georgia, where Uncle Joe Stalin and many of our asylum seekers come from) where a group of male Irish dancers were set upon by the ubiquitous angry mob on St Patrick's Day a few years ago, because the locals in some provincial town thought they were gay.

It's a fair point. And it also applies to those who were offered Crooksling etc but left to be back in town

Excellent post Blind As A Bat. Sums up how I feel too

It's interesting to see people talk about misinformation while simultaneously presenting facts that disregard probably the most important contextual information. In this case, you appear to have promoted a tweet by an Irish minister to greater contextual prominence than the outbreak of a European war which saw 6 million people fleeing Ukraine. This is hardly an irrelevance — the huge numbers of Ukrainian refugees suddenly injected into the European refugee system have undoubtedly increased the strain on the processing systems of countries and...yes...many applicants hopeful of capitalising on that will have done so.

It's also hardly deflection to point out that asylum applicant figures rose in the UK and Europe generally too. That's not to say that certain actions or policies specific to Ireland had no effect on the numbers that came here, but it would seem a stretch to say that "but for" a tweet or two, Ireland would have avoided the increases witnessed elsewhere in Europe.

Well, you've said it yourself — despite the insistences that multiculturalism and migration have precipitated the decline and fall of Europe, there wasn't exactly a Utopia beforehand and in relative terms we are faring very well compared to what came before in terms of peace, tolerance and prosperity. The Ukraine war has, at its heart, a similar imperialistic and nationalistic territoriality as that which spurred the world wars — not migration.

But you're also right that human nature doesn't change. There is nobody on the Right, Left or Centre who can confidently claim to set us on a course where wars and genocide will be no more. Migration and multiculturalism may well lead to conflict in years to come, but monoculturalism has not exactly proved itself to dissuade the existence of war or tyranny either. The key is that regardless of what paths we take, people are willing to keep cool heads and to work together (and compromise) to promote peaceful resolution.

Must be some event the world media would cover in Dublin in the next couple of days 😏 Back by Thursday

https://x.com/Mick_O_Keeffe/status/1792832376265203932

You keep trying to conflate the RU-UA war with ipas flows from other countries for some reason.

Pre-war, we had one stream of asylum seekers into the country - mainly from countries in Africa and the ME. This stream was steady over many years but took a massive jump post the tweets and the relaxation of covid travel restrictions. We then acquired a second stream of refugees from UA - This second stream ran separately and in parallel with the first stream. Each stream had nothing to do with the other. The only comparison to be made is they both needed similar huge resources.

Had the morons in Govt not paid out the highest s/w rates of any EU country or taken tens of thousands of UA refugees from other (third safe countries) we would not be under the pressure we are now. These decisions by our Govt hoovered up the accom/other resources and our ipas situation would most likely be worse than the flow we are experiencing now, as those resources (given to UA's) would have gone to ip applicants encouraging even more to come here.

Frankly, anyone trying to downplay the impact of those tweets is nieve in the extreme. The tweets are not being talked about widely on the MSM for a reason. Three years later and the first I heard of them on RTE was recently when Michael Fitzmaurice and Brenda Power mentioned them on two seperate shows. When Brenda mentioned them Brendan O'Connor feigned surprise with 'When was that…'

The treatment of Ukrainians has been flawed all along, there was to be a review next year, cutting payments again in advance of that is populism. These are people whose country was invaded by Russia, there is no question but they are as deserving as we are ever going to see.

All that said, it is somewhat encouraging that the Government have moved to the right on immigration, there are serious anomalies to be addressed. We might be spared the rise of the far right yet.

I think it goes a bit beyond immigration, many working people are of the view, and it’s not without foundation, that people who don’t work are treated far too generously.

Evidence has already been provided that they are not asked about those things

A major miscalculation that was made was the assumption that the war would last six to nine months at most and then things would quickly settle down and Ukrainian people would be able to return home. Nobody was able to envisage a major war in Europe between two large countries in the 2020s that would go on for several years.

It can be argued that a lot of mistakes were made in early to mid 2022 re. Ukrainian refugees, but this is mostly with the benefit of hindsight. This whole issue of Ukrainians being a 'burden' on Ireland and a big talking point really only started coming to the fore in mid to late 2023.

If it depends on an interviewer then you cannot say with certainty that they are asked the question on attitudes.

I also have no idea how a question on attitudes would put someone at ease

almost a carbon copy of what happened in Newtown (and other communities before). No matter how much the community protest, no matter how valid the reason, they're going in.

Broken promises, no engagement with community, no due process, smoke and mirror tactics, intimation of locals through dodgy security staff. What has become of this country.

well, they never really went away…