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

What is a realistic target when we could have a million homeless people next year? I guess a million has to be the target, although not very realistic.

As.for having a limit on the people who need a house, going by yesterday's election I don't think there's much support in the country for leaving the EU so that kinda kills that idea.

Or perhaps the electorate can decide for themselves who they do or do not wish to vote for. It's patronising to presume you know better then t h e electorate. People are not stupid, and most make their minds up based on their own values.

"from what we've seen in this thread, some people here would rather sit there and tell Karim from Algeria that if he's Muslim he's a savage"

To be honest, I can't say I've seen much of that on this thread. There was one guy who was banned who seemed to resent all foreigners, even those from other EU countries, but there seem to be far more people like myself who have a major concern about the potentially huge flow of single men and how it's going pan out if it's not dealt with appropriately.

My second concern, and again I think many reasonable people share it, is that Europe is now a multi-cultural place and Ireland is very much so, with around 25% of our population identifying as something other than Irish. Europe as a whole and Ireland as a sovereign state have to decide how we are going to manage our changing demographic and what controls we will put in place on all kinds of immigration and awarding of citizenship. Otherwise, it is entirely possible that fifty years from now Ireland will no longer be Ireland - and that makes me sad. Are we seeing the last days of what makes us uniquely Irish? And I don't just mean hurling.

"Brightness was drenching through the branches
When she wandered again,
Turning the silver out of dark grasses
Where the skylark had lain,
And her voice coming softly over the meadow
Was the mist becoming rain."

(Austin Clarke)

Who but an Irishman could write so beautifully about a cow, of all things ……..

And yet, now we see so many people speak derisively, with contempt for Irish culture, reducing it to 'trad music, meat and two veg, GAA'. I think, yes, sad is the word that sums up how I feel.

Well, yeah that is true too!

Irish people are very easy going. They support who they know. They are loyal. They are very friendly and love to chat. They are known the world over for this. It would take most Irish people a lifetime to change who they would vote for.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/09/record-immigration-britain-failed-raise-living-standards/

This is the path this country is on. We're mortgaging our financial future to take in large numbers of third world migrants, many of whom will be a significant burden on the state.

"But there wasn't a foreigner to be seen."

That's certainly not true. I'm not sure just how ignorant you are of our social history or whether you're just being sarcastic. We've always had foreigners in Ireland who made a great contribution to our culture. Ireland has long been a mixture of insular and simultaneously outward looking. Our history curriculum in Irish schools should really include in depth social history and definitely a module for each region of the country because they all differ somewhat. Most people know the political history, but not the social history as you've just demonstrated.

"Sketchy details of some incidents in Poland"

It's not 'some incident'. If you want the full details the soldier's name was Mateusz Sitek. He was stabbed with a knife which had been attached to a long stick/pole. It was clearly a weapon created with the intention of being used from a distance. There was deliberate intent behind the action.

"manipulated by Putin and his cronies, deliberately to spread division led by anti-immigration sentiment.Funny you don't mention this?"

I thought it's pretty much common knowledge that Putin and Lukashenko are orchestrating this - many of the migrants at the border have Russian visas and have been told that they can cross into the EU. The fact that they decide to do so by stabbing and assaulting, when prevented by the border guard, is a separate matter.

Far from being fear-mongering, it's a simple statement of fact, a fact which you find unpalatable as it doesn't fit your own particular narrative.

So even though you recognise Putin and his cronies are orchestrating this, you don't think they had anything to do with the knife on a long stick attack?

Attacking a border guard with a knife on a long stick seems a strange way to seek asylum to me. Why didn't they just sneak under the fence as others crossing do?

I've shared the links several times on how people are crossing the 'hard' border in Poland, despite the 10,000 soldiers and thousands of cameras, do I need to do so again?

Couldn’t agree more!

We clearly all didn't cheer Adam Idah scoring though. The son of Nigerian man. We've all seen the comments here, let's not pretend otherwise. The same with Rhasidat adeleke who parents are Nigerian. Clearly people on this thread are worried about the future of Ireland and our culture when we let foreigners into Ireland.

Blind As A bat himself quoted the 20% figure being migrants. Those 20% aren't all here illegally.

"I never felt skin colour is what made a person Irish."

Indeed. Phil Lynott was a Dub, through and through and he wasn't even born here.

I'm just not too hopeful for the survival of what's left of our culture when so many Irish people seem to despise it. I quoted an Irish poet and I'm sneered at by another poster and cast in the role of an ignorant, small-minded bogger. If I were a newly arrived Nigerian and I quoted an African poet, would I be sneered at by the same poster? I doubt it very much.

I personally cheered Idah’s goal - I’m not hopeful we’ll have much to cheer v Portugal but if we do we’ll cheer regardless of skin colour or birthplace. You put on the green shirt and you’re ours.

Those in the far left and their cheerleaders want to paint everyone who wants a realistic conversation on immigration and setting a sensible asylum policy as racists - they have no real cogent argument and so can only smear and troll.

I'm not painting anyone as racist. People on this thread have shared plenty of stores about driving to their local nature area and seeing loads of migrants there, walking into their local cafe and seeing more migrants than "irish" and driving past football grounds and seeing migrants playing football as all negative things and an erosion of Irish culture. Do you accept this conversation on immigration has to include a conversation about not letting too many foreigners in? That seems a message that has repeatedly been presented in this thread.