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

That poster you are replying to is banned.

Actually The last eurostat fugure for 2023 is 21.8% not 20% ... I'm curious as to why it being 25% would even matter though as all immigration is equal wholesome and progressive.. isn't it? By 2050 it will be greater than 50%. We have the 4th highest percentage of foreign born people living in the EU 27. We are a small nation with a small population. For my part I strongly beleive we should be doing our best to ensure that the culture traditions values and essence of of country should be protected and people who are not Irish should be integrated into our society in the best way possible to contribute to it.

It's been said many times on here the issue is not legal migration, rules based visa systems where we advertise for roles and people apply and come here legally. They come with a work ethic and a willingness to adopt to and contribute to our culture. The expression adopted Irish used to exist millenia ago before it was outlawed by the far left its why we didn't call every person who landed in Dublin Airport Irish when their feet touched irish soil.

The issue is mass "irregular" immigration and integration into our country. I beleive that the Irish people and our culture/traditions/values are worthy of preserving. You cannot do that succesfully with mass immigration all you will do is polarise people, tribalism is a human trait it applies to irish just as much as it does to anyone born outside of ireland and will affect integration.

I feel that comment makes a good few baseless assumptions about me. I detest Putin. The man is a monster and the behaviour of Russian forces in Ukraine when they waded in there was nothing less than Satantic. The Russian regime, ever since the Bolshevik revolution has been pure evil. I'm very well read on the subject of Russian history.

As for Belarus - I was not referring to Belarussian nationals. I was referring to the migrants from Iraq and Syria who are camped out on the Polish/Belarussian border, a situation that has been going on for a couple of years now. They have been invited there by Putin and Lukashenko, given Russian or Belarussian visas and then told that it will be easy to simply cross the border into Poland and thus the EU. When they find that that they've been duped, some of them become understandably angry and violence erupts.

Probably most of them are decent people of course and one feels for the unfortunate women and children who have been brought there by their men. It's a sad situation. One of the guys interviewed by Human Rights Watch was a 24 year old who said he was a graphic designer. He's a good example because he had previously applied for a work visa for the EU and been turned down so decided to try his luck illegally. I do feel sorry for the guy but we can't just take in everybody who wants to come to Europe.

Btw I have friends of all nationalities and religions. Turkish people are some of the nicest you could meet. I have four Turkish friends, one a research scientist, one a software engineer, another in banking, one a lecturer in nursing, charming, delightful people. If we had more of their ilk and fewer of our own scumbag class, Ireland would be a better place.

I think you paint a pretty negative and unfair portrait of the country, to be honest. In fairness, I hear things like this a lot, so you certainly aren't alone — but I do often wonder if success and prosperity has made us a bit soft and spoiled in this country and across Europe generally. People have become so used to the relative comforts offered by modern Western Europe that the collective consciousness has forgotten just how bad things used to be before the old Europe gave way to the new in the mid to late 20th century.

And you end up with threads like this on Boards, where an endless litany of examples of Ireland's rapid decline and its general sh*tness are fairly starkly at odds with any consideration of where the country has come from historically. We are a small relatively isolated island on the fringes of Europe, with little resources and historically a poorer, agricultural economy. Our economic transformation over the past generation or two is hardly the hallmark of a country that has been managed wholly ineptly — especially for a small island economy that is always at the mercy of geopolitical forces it cannot control.

By constantly running the country down, and over-aggrandising the negative aspects at the expense of the positive, you only promote a reactionary form of discourse that lacks balance and only succeeds in making problems more politically intractable than they might otherwise be.

 "Ireland has always been much more rooted in the centre with very stable politics, going back many decades."

That's why it's a shame to see that the incompetence and complacency of the present government has sent Ireland heading down the right/left divide route and we see people like Gavin Pepper elected to local politics. God forbid that his minor success doesn't embolden him to stand in the next general election.

There's clearly an issue with legal migration. The 21.8% is largely from legal migration and people have an issue with this. There's no support for us leaving the EU and it's not going to happen. I think it's time you accepted that.

Should be noted too many of the countries were there is a large far right presence are former colonial powers i.e. Britain, France, Netherlands, Belgium etc, even Germany.

Could it be that our experience of being on the receiving of colonialism and oppression frames our understanding of immigration and multiculturalism as being different to those countries?

.. https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/nearly-6000-refugees-stuck-in-international-protection-due-to-inability-to-find-housing-esri-finds/a581921452.html

I would say it probably does, yes, plus our strong cultural and historic familiarity with being migrants ourselves. The imperial nations' views on migrants were likely coloured to some extent by racial superiority sentiments and perhaps even a sense of shame that their former glory had given way to needing their colonial subservients to rebuild their post-war economies and infrastructure.

Indeed, that's probably one of the main reasons the French had such issues with it, they weren't really willing to accept the first waves of post-War "Maghreb" migrants as ever being capable of integrating and indeed housed them accordingly out of the way and trusting they would eventually f**k off, thus creating the concrete banlieues of today.

Funnily enough, the French banlieues are the Right's poster child for the evils of immigration and the futility of integrating migrants — when really the very character of the banlieues is built on an original desire by the French to not even entertain the idea of integrating them.

Out of interest, who is calling you names?

Yes, if only we could get rid of those 6,000 aslyum seekers we'd solve the housing crisis.

Well I think basic maths and logic will inform you that it's just adding to a problem - pouring a bit more petrol on the fire. And of course, as widely thought this is the tip of the iceberg and the numbers of our new guests needing accommodation is going to exponentially increase. How about your gaff - got any space? We've none here - all moved home.

Ah sure what's your solution add another 6000 to it or another 20000. Does it make any difference ?

Generally I'd consider to a lack of housing is to build more houses and elect governments who prioritse building houses, rather than electing people's who's solution to the problem is to get rid of foreigners.

Are we really going to pretend that if they were put out on the street, as would be logical in your opinion, there wouldn't be uproar on here at the eyesore of thousands more people dwelling in tents or in doorways and the apparent safety concern that would cause?

And this whole thing about the bleeding heart Lefties should open their doors. Well, where is this sentiment for the millenials you appear to have great compassion for? Are there not plenty of Right leaning people who might have a property they could offer to a local couple trying to save up for a deposit? Or give a room to a homeless Irish person?

Why is it only the lefties who have to pass a compassion purity test?