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

Reports on plans

Versus

Reality

What I provided you with is a resource that you can use to look up various ongoing projects around the country, given your earlier complaint that plans should be in place now and all the rest of it. The site even provides information on how much in public funds each project is receiving, and I don’t know if it’s that you weren’t arsed to look, or you just didn’t care, that it doesn’t appear to have made any difference to your opinion.

Well it’s one thing when people can’t be arsed, that’s fine, perfectly understandable. It’s quite something else when you willingly swallow bullshìt and then complain afterwards about it leaving a bad taste in your mouth. What you’ve done apparently, is swallowed bullshìt, don’t like the taste, and now you’re trying to regurgitate it. So I’ll start by putting some perspective on your BS claims that to you are reality.

Schools in Dublin aren’t struggling because people can’t find somewhere to live. Schools in Dublin, and elsewhere around the country, are struggling due to the lack of funding being provided by the Department of Education. One of the responsibilities of any Government Department is to ensure they are providing value for money where public funds are being spent - NOT just providing value for “the taxpayer” as so many posters here who are taxpayers, like to claim -

https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/c72a9-value-for-money-framework/#:~:text=All%20Irish%20Public%20Bodies%20are,is%20being%20spent%20or%20invested.

Your claim was about schools in Dublin, yet the example you provided was a school in temporary accommodation in Co. Meath. You could have picked any county as an example really because it’s again an issue that has been ongoing for decades, not just in recent years with the rise in the numbers of immigrants coming to Ireland -

https://archive.ph/oF4v3

Development of a new school in the Dunshaughlin area (which already has a number of schools and is not struggling to provide children with school places), has been underway since 2020 -

https://www.meathchronicle.ie/2024/05/09/parents-frustration-that-schools-temporary-accommodation-is-now-in-its-fourth-year/

Billions is not being wasted on asylum seekers, nor are Irish people being left behind when it comes to either accommodation or education. In relation to asylum seekers in particular, asylum seekers are not eligible for social housing assistance -

https://www.factchecking.ie/articles/how-social-housing-differs-to-accommodation-provided-to-asylum-seekers

https://archive.ph/lGqjh

The situation for people who are homeless has been an ongoing issue for as long as asylum seekers have been accommodated in Direct Provision Centres. Irish people were being accommodated in local authority housing and in emergency accommodation such as hotels. At least it was intended to be emergency accommodation, which turned out to be a more permanent solution because in the short term it was cheaper than providing permanent accommodation -

https://archive.ph/IsBlx

https://extra.ie/2024/06/08/news/irish-news/council-houses-empty

The same approach has been used in education for decades, it’s cheaper in the short term to provide temporary accommodation, and nobody gave any real thought to the provision of long-term accommodation, let alone the idea of providing new schools to support an increase in the population, or public funding for schools for children with specific additional needs. The idea was to have all children in mainstream schools, something which I support, while at the same time those mainstream schools need more public funding to accommodate children with additional needs in education. The Department of Education doesn’t make any distinction based upon a child’s ethnicity or nationality, as they are aware that the Irish Constitution and International Human Rights Law requires that the State upholds the right of all children to education. Invariably, Government have historically been lackadaisical in fulfilling their legal obligations -

https://archive.ph/CN5p5

The single biggest driver of all the issues you mention is the obligation on Government to provide value for money where public funds are being spent. The lack of investment in social housing is only a small part of that, and something which has been an ongoing issue for decades. Same in education, same in healthcare.

Government isn’t actively seeking to buy properties for asylum seekers instead of making it viable for Irish people to live. Government are seeking to buy properties to accommodate asylum seekers, to cut down on the bill received for services from providers of private accommodation. At the same time, Government are also trying to reduce costs associated with providing accommodation for people who are homeless, predominantly people who are Irish, by providing local councils with public funds to bring derelict properties up to standards for habitation by human beings:

https://archive.ph/igekg

(the article gives plenty of examples and stats on the ongoing construction projects in Limerick - not just plans, actual construction)

We have the current shìtshow because it would have been political suicide for any Government to put sufficient long-term supports in place in Irish society for people who would need it in the future, given the costs involved at the time. It’s why short-term thinking became the default approach, and when it was pointed out in 2000 that the system of Direct Provision would not work long-term, that was ignored by the then Government, and successive Governments after that, until the current Government finds itself in the situation it’s in now.

Immigrants and asylum seekers don’t make public policies, lobby groups with vested interests don’t make public policies - elected representatives of the people are who determines policies, and if you’re only now realising that you’ve been caressing the shìtty end of the stick, that’s not on immigrants or asylum seekers, it’s on you for being unaware of what was happening in the country you’ve lived in for however many decades you have done, and only using it now when you want to have Government abandon it’s obligations under Constitutional and International Human Rights Law, not even in service of the common good, but because you think it’s putting the needs of asylum seekers before Irish citizens.

The Irish Refugee Council btw, funded in part by the State (most of their funding comes from private donations), does not, and never has, housed asylum seekers in houses. What the Irish Refugee Council actually do, is take a lot of the burden of providing advice, advocacy and support to asylum seekers and refugees off the State, and that’s what they receive public funding for doing so (short-term thinking again, but providing value in the short term), as opposed to the State having to take on the responsibility of that burden, which would be politically disastrous for any party wishing to adopt that approach.

It’s as though you imagine there isn’t a whole legal and political framework around this stuff which countries are obligated to adhere to and uphold, a framework that countries can just abandon when it suits the whims of a tiny percentage of the population, as though even institituting a zero refugees policy would be feasible without the side-effects of the country becoming a real shìthole for everyone, not just limited to the people who have always been affected by the issues which you’re only bringing up now in an attempt to have those people join you in your crusade against the current Government. As far as they’re concerned, the way they see it is - if you never gave a shìt about them before, why should they give a shìt about you now, and how long would it take once you’ve got your own way with regards to asylum seekers, to turn on them?

If you wish to talk reality, then in reality it appears the only person you’re interested in serving is yourself, given the lack of interest or attention you have paid to people who have been affected by the issues for decades that you’re only complaining about now, because you don’t want any public funds being spent on asylum seekers. That’s not a new thing either, plenty of people before you have engaged in the same sort of rhetoric, with varying degrees of success.

Imagine they have a taxi on demand in Dundrum to take them any where they want, it's all free!!!!

**** like this is so so f-ing frustrating, the fairness of all this blight is what makes people angry. My elderly mother would love a free taxi to take her into town for the shopping….

I'm of the opinion these people shouldn't be allowed to leave their center at all. This center provides them food, beds etc. What's stopping these people going underground never to be seen again, the security risk on this is frightening

Funny, we had more people seeking asylum in Ireland in the late nineties and early noughties than we do now.