Could Ireland cope with another wave of immigration?

oscarBravo

Fair point: it's an important distinction. Any discussion of asylum seekers to a separate thread.

Nodin

opo wrote: »

See link above iceman.

Yes, thats what I was on about when I said "You can seek to redefine that how you want".

opo

Nodin wrote: »

Yes, thats what I was on about when I said "You can seek to redefine that how you want".

Was that?

opo

Pittens wrote: »

As usual the discussion about immigration gets to asylum seekers. That is not what we are talking about.

Point taken.

daithicarr

Pittens wrote: »

We are not talking about refuguees but the cost to Ireland ( and other countries) of legal immigration.

fair enough that was the inital point but people were saying that refugees and immigrants were some how automaticaly entitled to social welfare which is not the case, unless they meet the habitual residence requirements , they cant simply arrive and sign on.

as for the cost of immigration, id say the cost is very little, id like some one to list a couple of these costs.

the benefits however are easy to see, we get more skilled workers which alows us to attract/establish more companys, which in turn adds to the economy here. more people means more stuff bought and sold, more houses needed, more services used etc. they brings skills to the country which are needed by irish and multinational companys , our health system etc. as these specialised skills are brought in the revenue generated by these jobs creates further jobs, jobs which irish people who dont have the ability to become doctors, engineers, scientists (such as myself) can do. their very existance can create positive change. e.g many of these arrivals speak two or more langauges, which in turn shows us irish who only finished school with one lanuage that its not impossible to speak a few languages and actualy beneficial.

View

Pittens wrote: »

Ok, then, lets stick the this: the major financial provisions of the Maastricht treaty are being ignored and nobody is challenging said provisions in the ECJ - the only way to apparently make them illegal. You are clearly hair-splitting.

The financial provisions relating to the Euro are contained in the TFEU. They specify that member states shall avoid excessive deficits. Where a member state fails to do so then the provisions of the Excessive Deficit Procedure (which I linked to previously) are set in train. As you see from the previous link, such procedures have been initiated for all, bar one, member states.

That is exactly what the provisions of the Treaty specify should happen. That is what is happening.

As such, your claim that "the major financial provisions of the Maastricht treaty are being ignored" directly flies in face of the evidence (see the links on the Excessive Deficit Procedure).

The reason that nobody is challenging them in the ECJ is because the provisions of the Treaty are being followed.

Pittens wrote: »

I am saying the free movement provisions will happen if immigration is seen to be the cuase of a permanent unemployed sub-strata. The fact that Germany has already asked for, and has gotten, a special case sets a precedent.

As I said, transition measures are specified in the Accession Treaties. There is nothing unusual about there being transition measures in an Accession Treaty (even for Germany). All Accession Treaties had them - even Ireland's.

The standard provisions on free movement of workers will apply in Germany and Austria from May 1 next year. They already apply in the rest of the former "EU-15".

Wishful thinking on your part is not going to change this.

View

Pittens wrote: »

You method of "arguing" seems to be to quote out of context something that would be clear to a 2 year old - I had been talking about immigration in Europe and the Maastricht treaty- and ignoring the other arguments you jump on a particular phrase. I think we should control European immigration, and that is what I was talking about.

Fine, so you are advocating that we leave the European Union.

What? You don't want to do that?

Then the Freedom of Movement principle applies.


Lest you be in any doubt, here is the relevant quote from the TEU:

Article 3
(ex Article 2 TEU)

1. The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.

2. The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime.

(Note: The immigration reference there means from outside the EU)

djpbarry

Pittens wrote: »

Ok, Uncontrolled Immigration from Eastern Europe. Happy?

Good thing or not?

The ability of EU citizens to move freely throughout the EU is a good thing, yes.

sirromo

I think the level of immigration into Ireland over the last decade was far too high and I don't want to see a return to those levels when our economy recovers. I think we should aim to have a level of immigration that is not significantly higher than the levels of our economically-responsible neighbours in Europe.

Dob74

sirromo wrote: »

I think the level of immigration into Ireland over the last decade was far too high and I don't want to see a return to those levels when our economy recovers. I think we should aim to have a level of immigration that is not significantly higher than the levels of our economically-responsible neighbours in Europe.

+1

Immigration was pushed by the gonernment but they have no real vision on how to handle it. The 400k new immigrants where treated as units of labour with no real thaught given to the social issues. Schools is the main problem, already white flight is happening. There was an interesting Dail commitee where 4 secondary schools where irish students were the minority, put there case forward of there problems. All FF members of the commitee did not show up. Summed up FF head in the sand approach. Sure arent they all going home.
FF may try to ignore all these legimite problems but they are not going away. Will the gov force all Publicly funded schools to take there fair share of minorities? Can't see publicly funded fee paying schools taking there fair share.

djpbarry

sirromo wrote: »

I think the level of immigration into Ireland over the last decade was far too high and I don't want to see a return to those levels when our economy recovers. I think we should aim to have a level of immigration that is not significantly higher than the levels of our economically-responsible neighbours in Europe.

Our economically-responsible neighbours? Who might they be? Considering that we are currently experiencing net emigration (and previously experienced net emigration for years prior to the ‘boom’) and we have a vast stock of empty properties (not to mention the fact that our population density is well below the EU average), why should we be ‘aiming’ for a similar level of immigration to our neighbours?

Dob74 wrote: »

Schools is the main problem....

But hardly an insurmountable problem, is it? In the context of the question posed in the thread title, I would say that the country has coped fairly well with the recent ‘wave’ of immigrants, no?

sirromo

djpbarry wrote:

Our economically-responsible neighbours? Who might they be?

The French, the Dutch, the Germans, the Danish, the Austrians...

djpbarry wrote:

Considering that we are currently experiencing net emigration (and previously experienced net emigration for years prior to the ‘boom’)

And? Are you afraid that we might run out of people to fill the jobs? With hundreds of thousands of people on the dole I don't think we're going to need to worry about that happening any time soon. If the economy does pick up again, and if there is a demand for labour, the Irish people who left the country during the recession would be the people to fill the new vacancies.

I don't think you're right either about us having net emigration for years prior to the boom. I came across this showing that Ireland still had the highest net immigration in Europe right up until January of last year. Spain, the country that had as high a level of immigration as us during the good times had seen their net immigration rate drop to less than a quarter of ours by January of 2009

djpbarry wrote:

and we have a vast stock of empty properties

The reason those properties are empty is not because there aren't enough people in the country willing to live in them. The reason they're empty is because people aren't willing to pay the current market prices to live in them. People are waiting for property prices to fall further before they buy.

djpbarry wrote:

why should we be ‘aiming’ for a similar level of immigration to our neighbours?

Because if any problems do result from immigration, and not even the most committed defender of mass immigration can claim that problems won't develop further down the line, those problems will be easier to deal with if we have a lower level of immigration than if we have a higher level.

djpbarry wrote:

In the context of the question posed in the thread title, I would say that the country has coped fairly well with the recent ‘wave’ of immigrants, no?

The question is not whether the country has coped well up to now. The question is how the country is likely to cope in the future. I don't believe we can expect the country to cope well with another massive wave of immigration. I think we can expect the country to experience the same kinds of problems that most other European countries have had in trying to assimilate their immigrant-descended populations.

View

sirromo wrote: »

If the economy does pick up again, and if there is a demand for labour, the Irish people who left the country during the recession would be the people to fill the new vacancies.

That may or may not be the case. It would large depend on the skill-set required for the vacancies and the skill-set of the applicants (whether Irish or not). For instance, a fair few of the "Irish people who left the country during the recession" would probably have construction-related work experience. Without significant re-training, they do not have the skills needed to fill vacancies in, let's say, genetics-related r&d and/or computer software development. On the other hand, other EU states may have a surplus of people with these skill-sets...

(All of which goes to show the very poisonous legacy of the construction-related boom)

sirromo wrote: »

The reason those properties are empty is not because there aren't enough people in the country willing to live in them. The reason they're empty is because people aren't willing to pay the current market prices to live in them. People are waiting for property prices to fall further before they buy.

I am certain that is true for some people. Were there a surplus of people willing to live in them though, that wouldn't matter (as there would be too many people chasing too few properties). An awful lot of that property was built on the premise that, with a projected rising population, it was needed.

I'd personally suspect that most people deep in negative equity would welcome any measure that would even stabilise the value of their property. If that includes immigrants to increase demand for their properties, then I suspect - given any sort of economic recovery - they'd welcome them. And the government will probably roll out the red carpet as well...

sirromo wrote: »

I think we can expect the country to experience the same kinds of problems that most other European countries have had in trying to assimilate their immigrant-descended populations.

To the best of my knowledge, most EU states don't have major problems assimilating citizens of other EU states. That tends to be with their non-EU immigrants and - I suspect - are education and culture related (i.e. you don't tend to hear about difficulties assimilating Canadians for instance :-) )

djpbarry

View wrote: »

That may or may not be the case. It would large depend on the skill-set required for the vacancies and the skill-set of the applicants (whether Irish or not). For instance, a fair few of the "Irish people who left the country during the recession" would probably have construction-related work experience. Without significant re-training, they do not have the skills needed to fill vacancies in, let's say, genetics-related r&d and/or computer software development.

Absolutely - there certainly seems to be a shortage of IT & software development professionals in this country.

View wrote: »

To the best of my knowledge, most EU states don't have major problems assimilating citizens of other EU states. That tends to be with their non-EU immigrants and - I suspect - are education and culture related.

I’d go further and suggest that many of these so called ‘major problems’ are based largely on perceptions, such as negative stereotypes, and have little basis in reality.