Refugees

Sean

Many years ago during the famine our peoples set out to sea to seek refuge in a new land to seek a new life...

now when people come to our land seeking a new life and refuge they are put in a prison until trailed, allowed to stay but recive racist hate and abuse or they are shiped back to where they came from.

Universal Human Rights Artical 5:
Everyone Has The Right To Freedom From War, Abuse & Hate

Boston

were has the stuff come from, what ever about how we treat refugees now, we were treated allot worse when we went to america, and lets not talk about how the english treated us.

there seem to be this impression we were welcomed with open arms

Xterminator

Sean

Have you ever considered the difference between economic migrants, and refugees?

A refugee must meet strict critera before they can be classed as same.

The geneva convention is very clear here.

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "refugee" shall mean every person who, owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country, or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

2. The term "refugee" shall also apply to every person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality.

If someone applies for refugee status and they are not entitled to that status, then they should be deported.
If they are entitled then they should be allowed to stay.

But this crap saying its unfair to deport people who have applied for refugee status, when they are not entitled to that status, because they have settled, or made friends etc. is crap.

It does take too long to to get a decision on status at the moment, but then we have queues for many things here in Ireland.

An economic migrant would be anyone who comes here cause life is better.

If you went to Canada, Austraila etc. without a work permit, they would throw you out.

The same applies here. If they are economic migrants, they apply for a via before entering the country.


X

Sean

yeah? but we should be welcome with open arms...

plus

can you tell a refugee from a normal person?
NO
because they are also normal people.

Samson

Sean said:

"Universal Human Rights Artical(sic) 5:
Everyone Has The Right To Freedom From War, Abuse & Hate"

Well as far as I see it, some of the current crop of "refugees" are not really refugees at all, but economic migrants who wish to come to Ireland not because they are fleeing from famine (as the Irish fled) or persecution.
Word seems to have spread about our wonderful welfare state, which is why many of these people have passed through other European countries to come to Ireland.
For example, many come to us through France, which of course is a fully fledged civilised western European democracy, why is France not good enough ?
I'll tell you why: social welfare handouts in France do not come anywhere near the level of what these people get when they come to Ireland.

Now, I'm all for taking our share of legitimate refugees (nobody complained when we took our share of Bosnians in the early 1990s, or before that when we took in some of the "boat people"), but I do have a problem with giving out more than what our own are entitled to, to what I see as parasites and fraudsters (in some cases).

Think about this: some of our own are living on the streets, yet every "refugee" that comes into the state is accommodated immediately (sometimes in a hotel).

As for your point about the Irish emigrating, well as Bo§ton pointed out, we were not always welcomed with open arms.
And besides, the Irish went away to work, there were no welfare hand-outs in the States or Australia in the 1840s (or anywhere else they went).

To illustrate some of the points I have made above, I have copied below an article from the Sunday Independent, please read it.


Immigration officials rage at refugee 'insult'
by JEROME REILLY, Sunday Independent 02/12/2001

Asylum seekers are treated better than our own, they say

ALLEGATIONS by the Irish Refugee Council that mothers seeking asylum are too malnourished to breast-feed their babies have provoked fury among immigration officials and staff who describe the claim as "an outrageous slur".

Immigration officials say the IRC research was deeply flawed, misleading, unrepresentative and incorrectly portrays asylum seekers as being forced to go hungry and feed on a diet of chips and baked beans.

Immigration sources say asylum seekers are better off than Irish families in similar circumstances. They point out that an asylum seeker lone parent with one child living in "direct provision" accommodation qualifies for cash payments of £503.87p a month while having accommodation, food, heating, lighting and medical bills met by the State.

An Irish lone parent family in similar circumstances is paid the same amount but, unlike the asylum seeker family unit, fuel, lighting and food costs and a contribution to the cost of their accommodation has to be met from their social welfare payment.

The controversial report has angered the Taoiseach who told the Dail its findings were entirely unfair and unjustifiable.

The central allegation was that asylum-seekers' children are losing weight from hunger as a result of the Government's policy of "direct provision" introduced last year.

It added that mothers cannot breast-feed their babies due to malnutrition and parents are humiliated in front of their children by staff in some of the hostels paid for by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

The report calls for the abolition of "direct provision" and for families with children to be moved to private rented accommodation.

It was funded by the Combat Poverty Agency for the Irish Refugee Council. The authors were Dr Bryan Fanning, Department of Social Policy and Social Work at University College Dublin, and Dr Angela Veale and Ms Dawn O'Connor of the Department of Applied Psychology at University College Cork.

Immigration sources say the report was seriously unrepresentative in that it appeared to have consisted of a survey of 43 families, of which only 30 per cent are accommodated in the direct provision system.

The main features of the direct provision system is that asylum seekers have all their accommodation, three main meals a day and snack outside mealtimes as well as heating, lighting and laundry paid for by the State. Each accommodation centre has to provide a mix of ethnic dishes, and menus are cycled at least every seven days to provide variety.

Sample menus include a minimum of six different cereals, three fruit juices, fruit, cheese, breads and beverages for breakfast, a choice of three main courses for lunch taken from lasagne, curry, chicken nuggets, spare ribs, Toulouse sausages, pizza, burgers or a selection of sandwiches.

Dinner must include a choice of two starters, as well as a selection of main course joints and dessert.

Each centre accommodating children must provide cots, infant food sterilisers, microwaves, fridges and kettles and tvs are provided in bedrooms and communal rooms, with foreign, usually east European and African, satellite channels installed.

Is this how we were treated when we emigrated ?

Samson

Red Moose

Yup, even in the US the no legendary "green card", you have to prove you won't become dependent on welfare and social services before you get it.

Bruce Morrison's radio talk a few weeks ago was very interesting. Irish immigration policy doesn't seem to have a focus - maybe it's because people were trying to get *out* for so long it never occurred to anyone that people might view Ireland as a nice play to move to (shocking! but apparently true!) (Of course they'll prob move again when they find out that there's no broadband - maybe getting a clean non-DACS 56k-capable line isn't a priority when you could be shot in your home country!)

I do think though that the method of becoming an Irish citizen - being born here or through parents/grandparents - should remain. Any child from wherever, if they are born here should be entitled to citizenship.

But, AFAIK, even in the US, a child can be born there, and hence is a US citizen, but cannot "sponsor" or something, the parents until the age of 21 - thus stopping the current trend of a child being born here and the entire extended family getting the equivalent of "permanent residence" status here.

Refugee status though is totally different, and even in the US when reading about Green Cards, they are quite strict and you have to prove that you will be persecuted in your home country if you had to return.

Boston

Originally posted by Sean
yeah? but we should be welcome with open arms...

plus

can you tell a refugee from a normal person?
NO
because they are also normal people.

you know what i find when this topic is diccused, a load of people saying me should or we should.
yea we should, if pigs could fly and fish swim backwards.

Give me a solution to how we can be more open armed, without damaging the fragile social structure that has built up over generations. thigs are never that easy

Winning Hand

Most Irish emmigrants were economic migrants, america wasnt called an Oiléan Ór for nothing, all through the twentieth century the irish left this country not because of hunger, religious persecution or police brutality, they were simply looking for a better life economically.

Its when you see what happened last weekend in wexford that it really hits you how easy we have it here.

Cork

Why is the Dublin Convention not being enforced? Human Trafficing is so wrong - Why do refugees not apply for refuge as they enter the EU?
Their countries need aid - Our governments should support more foriegn aid. We need to stop this Human Trafficing.

The European community leaders need to come up with an effective strategy to combat this Europe wide problem. Ireland should follow Australia's lead and pass new legislation to try and twart Human Trafficing.

Bottle_of_Smoke

I don't have a problem with them but a lot of people including other ethnic minorities, one i noticed was travellers.

They were sayin the Government should help it's own (ie travellers) before refugees.

Ironically it led me to believe the Government should help it's country by replacing travellers with refugees...

logic1

Originally posted by «Bo§ton»


you know what i find when this topic is diccused, a load of people saying me should or we should.
yea we should, if pigs could fly and fish swim backwards.

Beautifully put. I'll have the Enigma team get to work on that immediately.

.logic.

Aspro

A few points:

Refugees or economic migrants - both have been FORCED to flee their homes, friends and culture ..... no-one does this by choice.

Only a tiny proportion make it to the EU - around 0.01% of the world's 100 million displaced people.

Refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland are not given the right to work - that's the only reason they are on social welfare - I know people who are literally begging the Department of Justice(sic) to be able to work.

"We should look after our own" - tired over-used ignorant phrase. Long before there were any immigrants we had poverty, inequality, unemployment and homelessness. So that argument just doesn't wash.

Ignorance is bliss. Get to know your new neighbours and you might learn a little more about this ****ed up world.

Check out some facts:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/arc.html

http://indigo.ie/~columban/refugees.htm

http://www.umc-gbcs.org/advocacy34_letter.htm

We should all have the right to live and work where we please without fear of repression or alienation - put yourself in the same situation.

Enygma

we were treated allot worse when we went to america, and lets not talk about how the english treated us.

Does this mean we should reciprocate?

I don't have any problem with anyone coming to this country, as long as they are honest, hard-working people.
The government should allow them to work, if people start complaining about non-nationals taking their jobs then that's their own fault, if someone's better than you at something then it's up to you to fix it. Those arguments don't hold.

If they were allowed to work we would see their true colors. Besides with the downturn getting worse all the time it's only a matter of time before the ones sponging off our taxes flee.

Boston

anybody that compares what we got to what todays refugees in ireland are getting is totaly insane, and lets not forget those that stayed behind had it even worse.