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

Because that would never occur to the arrogant senior politicians here. McEntee would never want to be seen to ask for help

I dont see what would be wrong with it.

UK been trying to get more assistance from France. If us helping UK out benefits us ultimately, I don't see the problem. We'd be helping each other out rather than approaching UK with our cap in hand as it were.

It's time to send FFFGG/Labour/Soc.Dems/PBP "the Woke left" a message in the Euro elections that the current open for all policies aren't sustainable or working…

I'd still be sceptical this will result in people voting for right wing candidates in large numbers. It's all very well people saying they are concerned about immigration at the doorstep, but it's more than likely they will continue to vote for FF, FG, SF, Labour, Greens, Soc Dems, PBP etc. People can take on board ideas that appeal to the right wing without necessarily feeling the need to vote for right wing parties or candidates.

Every bit of plant and equipment that was at the site in Clonmel this morning is being moved off.
I was watching a live feed from there this morning and I thought that the bobcat and dumper was just going in through the second entrance and work would start. But no, low loaders now taking everything away including lighting and toilet cabins.

I agree that some of the issues we have experienced (and are currently experiencing) were and are preventable. But I do also believe that in pressured, novel, or unexpected circumstances we do need to be a bit more allowing for the fact that "getting it right" is difficult. There is nothing wrong with criticising the government — it is a healthy feature of any democracy — but I think there's a serious level of arrogance on here as to how assured people are that all of the issues are just down to complete incompetence, treachery, conspiracy and lefty liberal wokeness. Unless people are willing to lift their heads out of the tendency to lazily promote an argument by simply emnifying politicians or migrants / asylum seekers, they should reflect on the fact that they are part of the reason why we will struggle to come to rational and workable consensus on how we move into the future.

And I don't just mean in the little bubble of this thread — I mean in our daily lives and the discussions / debates we have which all feed into the collective discourse. T

Just catching up on things in Clonmel. What the actual ****.

Bringing in UK contractors to push things through. This is serious stuff.

any links to support?

For those posters who kept denying that immigration was causing housing shortages Minister of State Jennifer Carroll MacNeill mentioned on a Claire Byrne interview (around the 4:10 mark) that immigration is a "no. 1 issue for government along with housing because the two things are so linked"

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22397158/

It keeps being repeated that ROG is an 'obscure' or 'relatively unknown' minister. It doesn't matter if he is well known or not. Twitter does not just show tweets of people you follow. You don't need to have heard of someone to see their tweets. And he also has a verified Twitter account (blue tick at the time). It is not a stretch to say that algorithms would show a tweet from an Irish government official in the timelines of those who may have previously searched for info relating to the same subject. Not to mention the fact that it was in multiple languages so the algorithm would have also pushed this.

Those tweets were put out in different languages in order to get a wide reach. This wasn't an accident. I don't mean to be rude but those who keep saying that people outside of Ireland won't have heard of him are showing that they don't understand how social media works

Try telling that to the posters on here who seem to hate anyone mentioning that Irish migrants are part of the problem in terms of housing demand in places like Australia. A few days ago I got told this was a "rapist's defence".

In any event, you're making a bit of a leap there between what was said and what it means. Saying that immigration and housing are linked is not quite saying "immigration is causing housing shortages". Housing shortage is caused by a lack of supply of housing, and right now Ireland has not and is not producing enough housing even if you were to return the 1.5 million Irish people living abroad and boot out the migrants.

What certainly is true is that immigrants form part of the demand for housing, and demand obviously is something which keeps prices high. So migrant workers certainly contribute to the demand and therefore cost of property (though this is probably mainly felt in the rental sector, as migrants are far less likely to be on the property ladder than Irish-born citizens). I think previous debates on here had centered more so on the extent to which refugees (as opposed to migrants more generally) were exacerbating the housing crisis.

Think of it a bit like Everest...the grand canal is the base camp. The summit is the keys to own door accommodation.

Interesting graph. I wonder what caused the massive drop off in numbers around 2002-2004?

Surely it couldn't be the fact that we amended our constitution to limit the right to Irish citizenship by birth in an absolute landslide of a referendum.

Just shows that if there is the political will to do something to stem the flow of numbers arriving, it can be done.

Hopefully we'll be allowed to go back to the polls to decide what direction we want to go in as regards IPA/AS policy in the future. However, I severely doubt the government will risk putting the EU migration pact to the electorate, they know exactly what way that would go.

Well, no, I wouldn't question the capability of a tweet to make its way to a wider audience, I just question the placing of that tweet high on the list of influencing factors that led to the elevated numbers. The insistence that it's somehow more relevant than the outbreak of the Ukraine War just makes no sense to me.

Gone to Dundrum I hear. Soon to appear at well known shopping emporiums. In fairness, if they can hang around outside our local post office and supermarket, don't see why not in the leafy suburbs.