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

I'd think there's a broad spectrum of views on LGQTQ+ concerns in Ireland. Many people are within the community, others are supportive and some want to push hate, violence and discrimination.

The same is true for people from other cultures. It's your catch-all generalizations to the opposite that are hateful.

As for your claims about 'degenerates' and people who are 'morally, physically and mentally' undesirable you didn't talk specifically about people coming here, you also clarified directly that you hold these views towards the Irish undocumented living abroad. As far as I can tell your beliefs apply to any person in general who breaks the law, is that correct?

Bogus is pretty explicit by definition. I don’t think it’s being used as adjective to stereotype all international protection applicants, however I do think the vast majority of international protection applicants are in fact making bogus applications hence the use of the term.

Bogus - not genuine or true (used in a disapproving manner when deception has been attempted).

Walking down from Charlemount, I see there are 30-40 tents back along the Grand Canal, and they are pitching their tents inside the steel fences erected to keep them out. LOL.

If I understand what you're saying correctly, you're fine with what PD governments did around privatizing health and housing in the 90's and 00's, once this 'leftward drift' was kept at bay?

What do you mean then by this 'leftward drift'?

The dictionary defined it. I didn't.

If you don't like the word, thats on you. I won't tailor my language for your sensibilities.

But oh, what is that? ANOTHER mistake/misrepresentation.

The definition I quoted said: "having lost the physical, mental, OR moral qualities considered normal and desirable"

You changed the very important OR to AND. That changes things considerably and is another lie and doesn't tie into what I had previously stated and makes the word somewhat more hostile and, I dunno, "hateful" than it was. I wonder why you would do that?

I called people who commit crimes degenerates. I said we have enought criminals/degenerates of our own without allowing others in from other countries / allowing them to stay here, after commiting crimes.

Then refer back to my definition. Would you not agree that anyone who commits a crime (again, as said before, depending on the circumstance, motive, impact on the victim etc, not mistapping innocently on the leap card reader), loses the moral quality which would be considered normal or desirable?

Bizarrely, you think that the word degenerate is more of a problem than illegal immigration/asylum seekers.

I can't be responsible for what you find offensive, or heaven forbid, hateful.

Only you know your "ouchy" words.

I've corrected the typo.

I just find it a very extreme position to consider everyone who breaks the law as 'having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal and desirable"

You do know we're talking here about people who've been drunk in public, bought fireworks over the border, smoked a joint, or people in the north who've broken hate laws by calling for mass deportations and talking about 'bogus' asylum seekers.

Thanks for clarifying your position.

I do consider hateful rhetoric a bigger threat to the country than 'illegal' immigration/asylum seekers. It's bad enough for what it is in itself, but more-so how it feeds the very real violence and destruction we've seen on our streets. Also I believe it poses a threat to our social cohesion by wrongly labelling people from other groups as inferior or dangerous. Many of these people will continue to live in our communities, their children will go to school with ours and they'll work in vital and important jobs. Their best interests are now intertwined with ours and that language harms our communities.

There is no reason this particular issue, and by extension its much larger sibling of migration at large, should be political.

It is practically scientific.

If parts of the country were collapsing into the sea, taking housing with it, key personnel with it, hospitals with it, schools with it, and everything else, this wouldn't be a political issue.

However, add in that very particularly placed people are making fortunes off the literal collapse into the sea, and now it becomes a "political" issue.

Exactly so, that's what's happening right now. A supremely simple issue that everyone wants solved, ie stopped, muddied and politicised into something suddenly "complex".

Just imagine a different landscape, say 1980's ireland, and a million people start rocking in, thered be no if's, but's or maybe's about the reaction of the irish population with no money to funnel. Abrupt reaction, you might even say.

I just don't see a 'glaring immigration problem' to be honest, at least not in respect of IPAs.

We're actually talking about a relatively very small group of people coming here over the last twenty years. I estimate there's probably about 80-120k living here who've come through this route.

As I believe was the case prior to the last economic crash, I think an inordinate amount of ire is being directed towards this group, taking focus from more important issues around health and housing.

I based that estimate on the number of arrivals over the last twenty years (140k), the number of deportations, most recent figures for the number of refugees living in the state, and the numbers who applied for the asylum amnesty.

But of course it's more accurate to talk about 'swathes of foreign men'.

As I've said previously I do think how we accommodate asylum seekers is handled very poorly. Housing and services in general are in a terrible state, to which IPAs have had very little impact. Thanks in no small part to our anti-immigration movement I expect to see little change in that regard over the next five years. Opposition to the current government has become fractured and voters appear to be shifting to the center, to counter the rise in extremism and violence associated with anti-immigration sentiments and rhetoric.

I haven't been proven wrong on multiple occasions when stating statistics. I made a very minor error on quoting number of arrivals from twenty years ago which I immediately acknowledged.

As for all this talk about 'swathes' of men, 'safe' countries, vetting, keeping similar cultures together, welfare tourism etc, etc, etc. All it's doing is causing division and driving people towards the political status quo. We're now most likely looking at five more years of little or no change in how we provide services and manage housing. Thanks.

It's a bit of a glass half full, half empty question. Maybe not.

The sheer volume of headlines related to not enough this and not enough that, from staff to prisons to housing to teachers to creches to schools to transport and everything else in between is eye-catching, to say the least.

My own personal opinion is that were this under different circumstances, let's say the 1990's for example, then you really would be left with bewilderment.

However, with the rapid and voluminous population increase of recent times, a literal record population since the inception of the Republic, I can't help but come to the conclusion that what we are witnessing in real time is the effect of overpopulation.

It doesn't take much to overpopulate a "habitat", humans or animals or microorganisms, all the same. Consider that just the addition of one or two extra people into most people's homes would cause chaos. Just so for a country at scale.

When a phenomenon can be readily and accurately described in just one word, rather than 20 purportedly unrelated mini phenomenon, surely the universal descriptor is most knowledgeable and informative?

On the otherhand, the government seem to be sitting a on a pile of money with next to nothing to show for it. Which is equally bizarre.

"Ireland is full" is a phrase that has been turned into some kind of political statement and is practically useless for discussion now. Overpopulation on the other hand is an umbrella term for a set of genuine statistics.

There is obviously ideological agenda at play in this situation and quite simply that shouldnt be the case. This is practically a scientific issue, it is at least logistical. If we could focus on genuine evidence and statistics in a discussion it could be very interesting.

No, Ireland isn’t overpopulated, it’s our infrastructure which is underdeveloped.