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

That is a long term solution, no matter who is in government they are not going to magic up the number of houses needed now or in the future in the next year or 2 or maybe 5. So what happens in the mean time, just have anyone be they young irish people looking to move out of the parents house, One parent of a family that is split up that can't find accommodation, people coming to the country on work visa and Asylum seekers be they legal or illegal just all get tents so that they camp out on streets, canals and parks? Unless there is a slow down in people either coming into the country or as we seen in the past an upsurge in people leaving the country they will never be able to catch up on those needing housing, so in your infinite wisdom what is to be done?

People suggest things here and then you shoot them down and go to the extreme like in the quoted post so I ask you what should happen to solve the housing the crisis other than just build houses because just building houses while there are more and more people coming in not going to solve it?

This is an example of the perfect solution falacy: because the suggestion does not completely solve the problem it is therefore worthless.

In reality there is never going to be one solution but rather many partial solutions.

The point being contended here is that if you are worried about housing in the context of foreigners coming into the country — then asylum seekers / refugees represent a fairly small cohort of the overall foreign-born population in Ireland. Their effect on housing, in materiality terms, is therefore far lower than (say) migrants who come here via the conventional channels for economic migration. As well as that, at this point in time, of the foreign-born population it is those who are conventional economic migrants who are more likely to be in a position to compete with Ireland-born people in the rental market and (to a lesser extent, as migrants in Ireland are far less likely to be homeowners) house-buying market.

Nobody is saying that asylum seekers have no effect whatsoever on housing — hell — I'm not sure who here is even disagreeing with you that we should try to slow the number of asylum seekers down. But the point is that conventional economic migrants make up a far, far larger share of the foreign born population so even if your focus was on reducing their numbers as a way of easing housing demand this would make appear to make more sense than focusing on a far smaller sub-cohort of that demographic. Now I appreciate you mention work visa migrants too — but for the most part people on here tend to hyper focus on the asylum seekers / refugees as a major cause of the housing crisis (or at least elevate the prospect of their removal as being a major step towards solving it).

@ArthurDayne wrote "Nobody is saying that asylum seekers have no effect whatsoever on housing — hell — I'm not sure who here is even disagreeing with you that we should try to slow the number of asylum seekers down. But the point is that conventional economic migrants make up a far, far larger share of the foreign born population so even if your focus was on reducing their numbers as a way of easing housing demand this would make appear to make more sense than focusing on a far smaller sub-cohort of that demographic."

Perhaps not in the last few months, but arguments have been made on this thread that IPA migrants have no impact on the housing crisis on the basis that these migrants are housed in specially designated facilities for migrants such as direct provision centres etc. that don't deplete the general housing stock.

I don't think many (outside those making the argument) bought this line of reasoning but the arguments were nevertheless made.

Glad to see the "we have no problem with legal migration." trope is finally being discarded.

We need qualified people to keep our economy going so we can't stop these coming in. We are never going to build our way out of this problem. What we need to do is create large scale trailer parks like they have in the US. People will have to get used to the fact that they will live a large part of their lives in that sort of accomodation.

So your solution to the housing crisis is to get rid of a tiny percentage of people who mainly don't even live in houses as a short term solution to ensure going Irish people can move out of their parents house? I won't lie, I'm not sure that's much of a solution tbh. The reality is, the numbers just get stack up. As I've said already, getting rid of those 6,000 asylum seekers living in reception centres is going to be the solution to Irish people living in a box room.

The government have never shown any interest in building social and affordable houses. Re-electing a parties have shown no interest in doing that repeatedly is not going to solve the problem. Getting rid of a tiny percentage of asylum seekers is not going to solve the problem either.

I do accept getting rid of nearly all foreigners will go a long way though. It's absolutely ridiculous idea, but at least the numbers stack up.

I've answered your questions now.

More spending of OPM, not their own.

And just like that, the next pivot begins.

Demographers and the CSO think the population of what is now the Republic will rise to around 6m by the year 2050. The absolute upper end of their prediction is around 6.5m.

Are you attempting to WUM here to get a reaction? Is this your tactic?

Point out the post where I said what you have claimed in the quoted post?

Please point out where I claimed you said that. You asked me how to deal with the demand for housing. I gave you two potential solutions one could consider.

You said

no matter who is in government they are not going to magic up the number of houses needed now or in the future in the next year or 2 or maybe 5. So what happens in the mean time,

people coming to the country on work visa and Asylum seekers be they legal or illegal just all get tents so that they camp out on streets, canals and parks? Unless there is a slow down in people either coming into the country or as we seen in the past an upsurge in people leaving the country they will never be able to catch up on those needing housing.

Now, since you've claimed you have never had an issue with legal immigration, what exactly are you proposing to do, to "slow down people coming into the country" to help solve the housing accommodation?

We're importing 20-30k this year sport, check the numbers to date in 2024. This ain't going to go down anytime soon unless a much harder line is taken. Just as one example: Nigeria added 100 million people in the last 30 years. The good news is it's projected to add another 170 million by 2050.

It's so sad to see our country turning into this

Heart breaking infact, all created by the hands of this government