imigrants driving tourists away

constitutionus

well seeing as im one of the few people in this thread that actually works in the tourist sector (in a tangential type of way) i can say the OP is on the level.
the PC brigade mightnt like it but the yanks swallowed that blarney crap hook line and sinker and while the exchange rate does have alot to do with it the fact it takes em a day to find an irish person isnt helping either. its nothing new, practically all the hotel staff since the mid 90's have been foreign its just reached critical mass now in all the other sectors. irish tourism have a big problem here cause now were a multicultural society they cant market us as a "red haired maiens dancing at the crossroads" country anymore and they need to shape up fast.
its sad to admit it but most of the people that come here dont come back and when they do come they stick predominantly to the cities cause quite franky its too bloody expensive. you should see the ****e people are being charged for in place like kilkenny. and the B&B sector is on the verge of bankruptcy.
personally i dont blame em. if i went to poland and all i found was people going "story bud, what cnn i get ya" i'd be pissed off too. basically its false advertising:D

Hobbes

SimpleSam06 wrote:

I just pointed out we can do just fine without them, and in fact they are more of a liablity than an asset.

Really?

Lets imagine all the immigrants disappeared overnight.

Hospitals would collapse for starters as majority of nursing staff would vanish. Ireland doesn't have the numbers to fill those places with trained people.

Next up is builders. Again we don't have the numbers, but those Irish building companies who have been happily fleecing people for years will realise they aren't going to get as much as a profit and up the prices.

Meanwhile most places are going to find problems getting cheap cleaning staff.

As wages raise because there are no longer bodies to fill the places (either people don't want the jobs or are not qualified) you find all those price hikes, not that it matters because all those extra people that just vanished aren't going to be buying the products.

Of course thats only the tip of the iceberg, haven't even gone into the catering business or hotel businesses.

Oh and if your going to get stats/figures to prove a point, try to get more up to date ones. Ireland is very different then what it was in 2001. I mean that is starting of the end of the dot.com.

Hobbes

constitutionus wrote:

you should see the ****e people are being charged for in place like kilkenny.

The price hikes have nothing to do with immigrants either working here or working in the tourist industry.

For starters Ireland has been fleecing tourists for years. Don't believe me? Try actually going on some Irish tours that tourists come on. I did it a couple of years ago when my in-laws where here.

The Dublin city tour bus for example. For the price of 4 people you could hire a taxi driver for a day who would get you to the same places, tell you probably more factual sh!te then you get on the bus.

Newgrange? A fricken hole in the ground that you have to pay through the nose to see, they locked off the roads to it so you have to pay to even get close to it and you have to via a tourist center that charges prices that make Dublin prices look cheap.

We have various touristy spots where prices are magically disappeared from menus/items.

We have tour guides who knowledge of Ireland probably wouldn't even be half that of a polish person who couldn't point out Ireland on a map.

I sat through one tour guide one time who went on how Ireland was full of pedophile priests and fake disabled people who are scrounging off the state. (I'm not kidding, you might find my earlier post on it some years back).

Add to that American tourists are getting screwed because of the currency and most on package tours sit in their hotel in the evening because they can't afford to do anything at all.

SimpleSam06

Jumpy wrote:

Its due to a shortage of skilled irish IT workers, and when you say anyone who has an IT qualification can get into Ireland I will call bull**** on you there.

My arse its due to a shortage of skilled Irish IT workers. Here, read this. Thats the immigration service there, or since the pedantry is flowing thick and fast in this thread, the Working Visa and work authorisation scheme, as presented to you by Oasis, the Irish government information website. Now if you read that, you will see:

Rules
Applications

At present the designated categories are:

* Information and computing technologies professionals/technicians

Very first line.

Jumpy wrote:

Immigrants coming in on ICT visas do not lower the salaries, in fact they raise it, no skilled IT worker would have worked on the joke salaries Ireland used to offer for those in the IT industries.

The reason for those joke salaries? See above. And if your prospects at home are earning €20 a week, you'll sure as hell take that €25k a year sysadmin job.

Now if you don't mind, this is getting off topic, so perhaps you'd like to start your own thread about it. Or whatever.

SimpleSam06

Hobbes wrote:

Really?

Lets imagine all the immigrants disappeared overnight.

Hospitals would collapse for starters as majority of nursing staff would vanish. Ireland doesn't have the numbers to fill those places with trained people.

Oh yes, I do love a good flight of fancy. The hospitals I can grant you, but that requires a high level of training and competency. How many of the 100,000 immigrants a year for the last four years would you say joined the health service?

Hobbes wrote:

Next up is builders. Again we don't have the numbers, but those Irish building companies who have been happily fleecing people for years will realise they aren't going to get as much as a profit and up the prices.

Thats the most insane oversimplification of the building industry I have ever seen, and if you read that thousand post thread I started about it in business, you'd know what I mean. Lets just take one single, solitary fact. From one house in seven to one house in six in the country is standing empty. If you want backup on that, look it up in that thread. We don't need more houses, we have too many damn houses, and the builders will up the prices because its a Tuesday, given half a chance. Not that they will get half a chance for the near future, in my opinion.

Hobbes wrote:

Meanwhile most places are going to find problems getting cheap cleaning staff.

Oh noes, we'll be up to our knees in sewerage because they can't employ anyone to sweep the floor!1! I mean, what?

Hobbes wrote:

As wages raise because there are no longer bodies to fill the places (either people don't want the jobs or are not qualified) you find all those price hikes, not that it matters because all those extra people that just vanished aren't going to be buying the products.

And yet the public service has been receiving wages rises three times faster than the private sector for the last 5 or 6 years, and currently has a far better payscale than the private sector, and yet somehow the country hasn't sunk into the Atlantic yet.

Hobbes wrote:

Of course thats only the tip of the iceberg, haven't even gone into the catering business or hotel businesses.

Thats the biggest disgrace of the lot. Most of them pay immigrants a good deal less than minimum wage, either paying them under the counter or keeping them permanently on "training" courses, which allows them to legally pay less than minimum. I can't believe you are actually holding them up as a good reason for immigration.

Hobbes wrote:

Oh and if your going to get stats/figures to prove a point, try to get more up to date ones. Ireland is very different then what it was in 2001. I mean that is starting of the end of the dot.com.

Listen, if you're not going to read what I posted, you're basically talking to yourself. Well, whatever floats the boat.

I dunno, I make some economic points and some self appointed freedom riders leap in trying to claim that I'm setting up my own chapter of the KKK here.

Of course, what most of them don't see is that to a great extent they are supporting the abuse of immigrants who, as I said, keep wages artificially low in the low skilled and semi skilled sector (does the health service fall in here hobbes?). If they weren't, employers would have no incentive to hire them. See?

The PC brigade seems to like the idea of having a servant class to do the menial work, people coming hat in hand to beg for scraps from the table, a sneaking sense of pride that now it is us that are lords of the manor. Sort of an inferiority complex gone wrong, on a national level. Tragic, really.

Hobbes

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Listen, if you're not going to read what I posted, you're basically talking to yourself. Well, whatever floats the boat.

I read what you posted. Like I said, try getting stats/figures closer to current reality.

I dunno, I make some economic points and some self appointed freedom riders leap in trying to claim that I'm setting up my own chapter of the KKK here.

Your assertion, no one elses that I see. Ironically you moan about people calling you names yet you keep going on about "PC Brigade".

I'd say stick to the facts, but this after hours so I guess we have to put up with baseless crap quoting out of date figures to put a point across.

You might be too young to remember the nursing crisis but I do. Basically Nursing staff wages couldn't be raised without it being a burden on the country, Irish students were leaving the nursing field in droves because they didn't want to work slave hours for slave wages.

Solution: Immigrant workers, mainly Malaysian as I recall. Although that has seen become Polish now that it is easier to replace that demographic.

I'm sure in a magical perfect world we could just let them all go and hire only Irish people. Well sorry to say it doesn't work like that. You want that kind of reality expect to live with things costing x3+ more then they do now.

Get back to me when you back up your assertions with something more then anecdote.

SimpleSam06

Hobbes wrote:

I read what you posted. Like I said, try getting stats/figures closer to current reality.

Sigh. I get one stat wrong and everything I say is immediately suspect. Victor managed to claim every subsequent link I provided was from 2001, incorrectly, but I'll put that down to posting at 5am on his part. So my point was, read what I linked to.

Hobbes wrote:

Your assertion, no one elses that I see. Ironically you moan about people calling you names yet you keep going on about "PC Brigade".

Whoops, I only said that once, and in fairness I've been called a lot worse in this thread, from an embittered unemployed IT worker to a cigar smoking fatcat to a skinhead racist going beating up immigrants, although that last one was more by implication.

Hobbes wrote:

You might be too young to remember the nursing crisis but I do... Although that has seen become Polish now that it is easier to replace that demographic.

I thought I said the health services were the exception? As in I agree with you. I'm talking about low to semi skilled labour, the literally hundreds of thousands of new immigrants in the last few years. Did all of them land in the health services?

Hobbes wrote:

I'm sure in a magical perfect world we could just let them all go and hire only Irish people. Well sorry to say it doesn't work like that. You want that kind of reality expect to live with things costing x3+ more then they do now.

If the only way the Irish economy can support itself is by exploiting poor immigrant workers, its long overdue for a fall anyway.

And even looking at it objectively, what on earth are you talking about? We manufacture shag all in Ireland anyway, we import just about everything from China. Their prices aren't going up anytime soon. Hotel prices will go up without immigrants? Maybe, but I think they'd rather take a hit on profits than increase the prices any more. Lord knows with the quantity of them popping up the profit margins can't be too lean. Most b&bs are owner occupied also, I can't see a lack of immigrants slowing them down. We won't be able to sweep the floors without immigrants? And just another point, if prices were going to go up hugely without immigrants, how do you correlate the steep rise in prices ("rip off Ireland") since transition to the euro, with the enormous immigration since then? If anything, the number of immigrants seems to be pushing prices up!

Basically what you are saying is that these people are desperate enough to be exploited, so lets just go ahead and exploit them. Bah.

InFront

Simple is just such a fitting adjective in your case. You clearly have no knowledge of what you are writing about, just ranting. But this is AH, and there's nothing really wrong with that, it's claiming your absurd claims have factual evidence that I have problems with.

Anyway, on this topic, OP I also find your claims hard to believe. As others have said, the strength of the dollar and the cost of being a tourist here are, I would imagine, more inhibitory with regard to their visitation.
Sure, some tourists would love to see young Irish lads in tweed caps and milky skin pulling pints, chatting about light political goings-on with a soft Kerry brogue, much in the same way ardent "rememberers" in reclining chairs of nursing homes recall the comely maidens of yesteryear. That vision of Ireland needs to stay in those nursing homes. It isn't realistic, and it isn't (was it really ever?) accurate. Fairytales are exactly that.

So if you want to take this apparent reason for the downturn in American tourism seriously, you have to ask yourself what reasonable measures you want to take?
Well?
Lower prices?
No immigrants?

SimpleSam06

InFront wrote:

Simple is just such a fitting adjective in your case.

Original, never heard that one before! Ah no fair enough, it is getting too far off topic in any case, I'll drop it there. No harm to meant to anyone!

Gurgle

SimpleSam06 wrote:

Thats the biggest disgrace of the lot. Most of them pay immigrants a good deal less than minimum wage, either paying them under the counter or keeping them permanently on "training" courses, which allows them to legally pay less than minimum.

You're going to have to produce some statistics to back up the use of the word 'most' there.

It does happen of course, same way many of us worked through our teens at wages that over a 50 hour week didn't add up to the dole, but the vast majority of immigrants here earning considerably more than minimum wage. Theres plenty of jobs here, why would a legal immigrant work for less than minimum wage?

SimpleSam06 wrote:

We manufacture shag all in Ireland anyway, we import just about everything from China.

More bollox.

From here, as usual:

Industry accounts for 46% of GDP, about 80% of exports, and 29% of the labor force. Although exports remain the primary engine for Ireland's growth, the economy has also benefited from a rise in consumer spending, construction, and business investment.

Industries:
steel, lead, zinc, silver, aluminum, barite, and gypsum mining processing; food products, brewing, textiles, clothing; chemicals, pharmaceuticals; machinery, rail transportation equipment, passenger and commercial vehicles, ship construction and refurbishment; glass and crystal; software, tourism

What we're losing to countries with lower payroll costs are turnkey multinational factories, where the machinery and equipment is expensive speciality stuff but anyone literate and numerate can run it.

Incidentally, if we have all this cheap labour in the form of exploited immigrants, how come we can't keep these low margin manufacturing plants going?

fly_agaric

Gurgle wrote:

Incidentally, if we have all this cheap labour in the form of exploited immigrants, how come we can't keep these low margin manufacturing plants going?

Interesting question (to me anyway). Maybe it is not as easy for them to fiddle the paypacket to come to less than min. wage because the low-skill manufacturing workers would be PAYEpeople?
Of course, on the other hand - if low skilled service jobs could be outsourced to E. Europe or China somehow they would be going too!

Gotta say I feel sorry for the misty-eyed US tourists expecting gabby barmen and flame-haired cailíní dancing all over the shop. "Unwanted", "dumb fúcks", doting "nursing home patients"! Seems they almost get more abuse than the immigrants.:D

But it's downright fashionable to heap abuse on the "stupid yanks" now anyway. WTF do we need them for now we are so stinking rich!

constitutionus

Hobbes wrote:

The price hikes have nothing to do with immigrants either working here or working in the tourist industry.

For starters Ireland has been fleecing tourists for years. Don't believe me? Try actually going on some Irish tours that tourists come on. I did it a couple of years ago when my in-laws where here.

The Dublin city tour bus for example. For the price of 4 people you could hire a taxi driver for a day who would get you to the same places, tell you probably more factual sh!te then you get on the bus.

Newgrange? A fricken hole in the ground that you have to pay through the nose to see, they locked off the roads to it so you have to pay to even get close to it and you have to via a tourist center that charges prices that make Dublin prices look cheap.

We have various touristy spots where prices are magically disappeared from menus/items.

We have tour guides who knowledge of Ireland probably wouldn't even be half that of a polish person who couldn't point out Ireland on a map.

I sat through one tour guide one time who went on how Ireland was full of pedophile priests and fake disabled people who are scrounging off the state. (I'm not kidding, you might find my earlier post on it some years back).

Add to that American tourists are getting screwed because of the currency and most on package tours sit in their hotel in the evening because they can't afford to do anything at all.

when did i say the immigrants were responsible for the prices?:rolleyes:

Shellie13

actually the irish themselfs are much less accomidatin in the last few years!
Greated with grunts in most shops/pubs restarants as if theyre doin u a favor relievin u of hard earned cash in exchange for half baked service!

In the states in general they fall all over the customer (to a sick degree sometimes but what can ya do?!)

walrusgumble

Hagar wrote:

Statistics are notoriously unreliable, no offence.

I wonder how many of the immigrants put themselves down as "Holiday" or "Visiting Family"? We seem to count tourists coming into the country, but does anyone count them going back out?

Now that would be an interesting statistic.;)

true but you could also question how many irish citizens put themselves down as holiday or visiting family when they go to the us (unless you are talking about immigrants in general)

Gurgle

fly_agaric wrote:

Gotta say I feel sorry for the misty-eyed US tourists expecting gabby barmen and flame-haired cailíní dancing all over the shop. "Unwanted", "dumb fúcks", doting "nursing home patients"! Seems they almost get more abuse than the immigrants.:D

I've met lots of Yanks here on holiday, and they all loved the country. I think the OP made up his encounter to find Americans who were dismayed at modern Ireland.

They're not here for leprechauns and dancing maidens. Nobody is that stupid, expecting to find a lord of the rings set in the 21st century.
What shocked me when I talked to americans in california was the perception of a war-torn country where they would as likely as not be blown up on their holidays. They would as soon visit here as the Lebanon.

The ones who get this far are here to see historical sites from centuries before their country existed, the places their great grandparents grew up, 40 shades of green. They're here for the craic, the laid back lifestyle, chilling out in an Irish pub.

Unfortunately some of them think they'll find all that in Dublin. I take every opportunity to send them to the west coast.

Of course some things have changed - the most offputting aspect of modern Ireland is the casual racism you get in many places these days.

Victor

gary9112 wrote:

was talking to some american tourists the other day and they could not believe the amount of non irish in the country they were in shock

Imagine going to Hawaii, is the place full of Aloha girls wearing flowers and grass skirts? No, its full of Americans.

Shellie13 wrote:

In the states in general they fall all over the customer (to a sick degree sometimes but what can ya do?!)

Yeah, it can make the ordinary decent shopper feel like a shoplifting suspect.

mayhem#

I suggest that you look at your own comprehension of English before you comment on other people....

E.

Terry

Victor wrote:

Imagine going to Hawaii, is the place full of Aloha girls wearing flowers and grass skirts? No, its full of Americans.

can i state the obvious here, or does someone else want to do it?

Gurgle

julep wrote:

can i state the obvious here, or does someone else want to do it?

Its as reasonable to expect aloha girls in grass skirts in Hawaii as 19th century Ireland in the 21st century.

Actually, you would probably see more Aloha girls than Ceilis.

Terry

my point is that hawaiins are american.
semantics really, but there you go.

Talliesin

gary9112 wrote:

was talking to some american tourists the other day and they could not believe the amount of non irish in the country they were in shock

It would be lovely to think that the increase in immigration would reduce our attraction as a tourist site to assholes as you suggest.

I doubt it tbh, but maybe we should have tax-breaks for people in the tourist industry hiring non-nationals just in case it does work.

fly_agaric

Gurgle wrote:

Of course some things have changed - the most offputting aspect of modern Ireland is the casual racism you get in many places these days.

Are you really sure that's the most offputting?

It's a strange statement. Is Ireland way way worse than anywhere else (worldwide or just in Europe?) or was it somehow a racist-free zone before and now it's full of racists and bigots...?

Ste.phen

No, it was a 'foreigner free zone' until recently so the people who had racist views were fairly quiet about the whole thing. Now that there's higher immigration the whingers can wander away from the dole queue long enough to complain about the it, so the rest of us notice it more.
"Dey Tuk Urr JERBS!"

senordingdong

Karl Hungus wrote:

I was about to reitterate that not driving away potential customers (Not just yanks, but everyone who comes here) has nothing to do with the importance of the current workforce, that they are unrelated... But I think I've found your logical strand.

(Stop me if I'm wrong now) You're assuming that I agree with the OP's assertion that it is eastern europeans that are turning away tourists. Correct? That the current workforce should be sacrificed in trade-off with potential tourism money.

Anyway, if that's what you think, you're completely wrong. Infact, if you had read my first posts on this issue, here and here, you would realise my take on the issue of immigrants driving away tourism was that the Americans the OP spoke of had an unrealistic view of Ireland, and would've been dissapointed either way.

With that firmly in mind, let us backtrack then to this post, and my concurrent reply. I can understand where lines may have been crossed, but in my reply I mean to say that it's a sad attitude to have that "We don't need 'em" and calling them "Dumb fvcks" when it's people like that who want to come to visit us in good will and spend their money here, money we may well need some day.

So, in summary, my reply to julep's comment about not needing dumb fvcks spending their money is not in agreance with the OP's assertion about immigrants turning away tourism.

Excellent, thanks for clearing that up but for the record, I never assumed you ahd ill feelings towards any group of people.
My contribution to what Julep said was that it is the 'dumb fvcks' that I don't want. I don't care if someoen is American or Eastern European, it's just the dumb fvcks that I don't like.

Oh...and I thought you were saying you would welcome all tourists regardless of their manners etc...because their 'donations' will be needed in the future.

Victor

julep wrote:

my point is that hawaiins are american. semantics really, but there you go.

I don't recognise the annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii by the United States and the overthrow of its legal government.

Native Hawaiians are Pacific Islanders, not Americans.

Gurgle

fly_agaric wrote:

It's a strange statement. Is Ireland way way worse than anywhere else (worldwide or just in Europe?) or was it somehow a racist-free zone before and now it's full of racists and bigots...?

Lets take a look at a microcosm of Irish society - boards.

After a record year for visitor numbers to Ireland, the OP starts a thread claiming that immigrants are driving tourists away

Nearly every thread is swamped with people blaming the foreigners for everything. Whether its car insurance, house prices, salarys, jobs, social welfare etc, theres a dozen posters to tell us we can't get a fair deal because of all the damn foreigners.

fly_agaric

Gurgle wrote:

Lets take a look at a microcosm of Irish society - boards.

Okay, but Boards is far from representative of Ireland. I'd guess the general membership of the site is younger, more computer/internet savvy and certainly more up-its-own árse (...<<ducks>>) and wealthier than average.

Gurgle wrote:

Nearly every thread is swamped with people blaming the foreigners for everything. Whether its car insurance, house prices, salarys, jobs, social welfare etc, theres a dozen posters to tell us we can't get a fair deal because of all the damn foreigners.

1 - that is an exaggeration IMO. (However I don't read after hours much so maybe it does apply here??)

2 - see above about Boards not being
Ireland.

3 - Casual "racism" may be too strong a word for anonymous píssing and moaning about foriegners/immigrants on the internet anyway.

4 - In such threads there are far more people defending the "foriegners" than blaming x y or z on them or coming to support the gripers.
If the "blamers" (often characterised as racist bigots letting their kkk hoods slip a bit) do have a case about some particular issue it is also pointed out to them that the ultimate responsibility lies with our shítty govt. and politicians and their failure to govern properly and ourselves for letting them get away with it rather than foriegners/immigrants.