Ireland running out of accommodation for Ukrainian refugees due to surge in non-Ukrainian refugees?

As left-wing news outlets use reports of Ukrainians going home to see their doctors as an opportunity to criticize the Conservative government’s running of the NHS, others are asking why refugees are permitted to dash home for appointments in the first place...

I wonder if something similar is happening here.

the aisling murphy murder? wasn't he an EU citizen living in Ireland? i thought it was just "unvetted" georgians and albinos you were concerned with. do we need to be worried about them too?! i hate to break it to you but all 500 million EU citizens are entitled to move here any time they like.

so do we need checks on any foreign person moving into any area or what?

I wonder if something similar is happening here.

The answer is yes. Similar use patterns have been observed among immigrants and native populations use of the public health system in Ireland. The native population avail of public health services at far higher levels than immigrants -

The investigation of this paper reveals that immigrants born in countries other than the UK, and residing in Ireland, used GP and consultant-based healthcare at lower levels compared to native-born Irish people. Lower utilisation was not observed for UK-born respondents. This suggests that there may be forces which combine to influence the need, predisposition or access to healthcare amongst some groups of immigrants in Ireland. While the analysis has controlled for many of these predisposing, enabling and need differences between immigrants and natives, the wider literature points to other barriers in terms of discrimination, information gaps, informal networks and language, as well as cultural differences, that cannot be observed directly in the data available here.

The findings suggest that while migrant groups may have relatively lower interactions with the health system in Ireland, they also may be more vulnerable if they are less willing to use healthcare services or have less access to the healthcare system. To facilitate greater integration and prevent health inequalities arising from inequities in access to healthcare between migrants and the native population, further work to understand the reasons for these patterns is required. This work requires input from researchers, policymakers and those engaged in clinical practice.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266662352100043X

This isn’t surprising considering one third of the population has a medical card, with the highest medical card coverage among the over 70’s demographic, and the highest proportion by percentage of the population by county of those with a medical card in the border counties, with the lowest proportion percentage of people with a medical card in Dublin -

The number of medical cards rose from 1,478,560 in 2009 to 1,574,507 in 2018, an increase of 6.5%.  In 2018, nearly one third (32.4%) of the population had a medical card.  

The number of GP visit cards in 2018 at 503,650 was more than four times higher than the number in 2009 of 98,325.  One in ten people had a GP visit card in 2018.  

The number of people on the drugs payment scheme dropped from 1,587,448 in 2009 to 1,290,634 in 2018, a drop of 24%.  

By 2018 just over a quarter (26.6%) of the population were in the drugs payment scheme.

There was an increase of 20% in the number of people on the long-term illness scheme between 2009 and 2018, with the numbers rising from 127,636 to 281,075.  About 6% of the populaiton were in the long-term illness scheme in 2018.

In 2019, 31.8% of the population had a medical card, compared with 32.6% in 2009.  The age groups with the highest medical card coverage were those aged 70 years and over at 74.6% followed by those aged 65-69 years at 43.2%.  The age groups with the lowest medical card coverage were those aged 25-34 years at 19.3% and 35-44 years at 22.1%.

About a third (3.0%) of the population had a medical card in 2017.  This proportion varied by region. The highest proportion with a medical card was in the Border region at 41.3% while the lowest was in Dublin at 26.6%.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-sdg3/irelandsunsdgs2019-reportonindicatorsforgoal3goodhealthandwell-being/healthcare/

In short - the public health system isn’t actually in shìt shape, the reason it’s under pressure from a few different directions is the same as it’s always been - providing healthcare for an elderly population demographic that’s increasing. It’s not immigrants or people receiving other forms of social welfare services are putting pressure on the public healthcare system, and that doesn’t jig with some people’s narrative who want to portray immigrants as putting pressure on the public health system when in reality they aren’t anywhere near it.

they were saying boo-urns

flat screen TVs ffs, that's the last straw

I think your logic is flawed. You say that to remain competitive Ireland has no choice but to continue to encourage immigrants from abroad to fill jobs in healthcare.

Is it not true that in an increasingly global health worker market, to remain competitive, Ireland needs to pay its healthcare workers more?

There are thousands of Irish healthcare workers in Australia, the Middle East, Canada etc who would be glad to work in Ireland if we paid them properly.

Bringing in immigrant healthcare workers specifically as you put “at as little cost to the public purse as possible”, to replace Irish healthcare workers who find they can’t afford a house, rent etc on their wages sounds exploitative and a very poor and cynical policy to me.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20470187.html

Someone forgot to mention all the free prams.

must be a record for ranting by someone's first day of joining boards.ie, post after post of it

None of the above is actually fact, nor is it based upon anything even closely resembling reality. Your proposed solution to repair a system which in your opinion is broken, is to tear it asunder completely, and then let nobody anywhere near it unless you’ve had a chance to inspect their previous work first and they’re prepared to act in accordance with your authority.

That’s how you’d make policy, which would shape the economy in the way you imagine it should be done, which is where the UK are now with Brexit. It’s too early to tell if the UK will survive, but the prognosis currently is grim.

Is it not true that in an increasingly global health worker market, to remain competitive, Ireland needs to pay its healthcare workers more?

No, because that would make our economy anti-competitive in a global context. There are numerous reasons why people decide to emigrate, and the primary reason is that they wish to make a better future for themselves than they foresee in their home country. Paying nurses more would mean having to pay all nurses more, it would increase the cost of providing the services to the public. It’s a great idea of course if you want nurses who have trained in Ireland to stay, but the fact that our Government can source cheap labour abroad means they don’t have to. The same is true of nurses coming from other countries - they too have the same aspirations given the health systems in their countries aren’t in any better shape than Ireland’s healthcare system.

I do agree with you that it’s exploitative and cynical, and from the States point of view- we’re getting great value for money, but then from a personal point of view, I’m also looking at what little I pay in income taxes and the fact that my private health insurance for myself and my family is provided for by my employer, and we’re all in good health, so there’s that… 🤔

There’s little point indulging your nonsense rhetoric, so I won’t bother. Instead what I’ll do, is address the part which makes any sense -

And more to the point, people are experiencing first hand the results of your 20 year old economic disaster and guess how they're liking it?

It'll bear out sooner rather than later.

People are loving it, because they’re benefiting greatly from it, and those people who aren’t, well if you hadn’t noticed, historically speaking they have little power to actually do anything about the people who are benefiting the most from the current economic system.

This is why it’s perplexing to me that anyone would call you right-wing when your ideas are clearly of a socialist bent, where you imagine the countries wealth should be distributed equally or some shìt, because that’s the only way you have a hope of benefiting from it. You sure as hell don’t have any ideas about generating wealth that could actually legitimately change the current economic model to something more in line with your way of thinking. It appears you think wealth is generated out of thin air - the SF approach to economics.

I think what we are seeing now is a consequence of the media and politics generally running to shout "racism" or "you can't be saying that" any time any community had a concern (often legitimate) about migration, the asylum system and the housing of those seeking protection.

As none of the mainstream voices were willing to engage without denigrating those with opposing views on migration it's left a gap that has allowed extremists to capitalise on.

A smarter political system would have reacted to the abuses within the system years ago rather than ignoring them - or in the case of amnesties, facilitating them. The opposition we see is the outworking of these policies without proper consultation.

The result of all this is you now have a political opinion group that doesn't care what polite company thinks about them now - because they've realised that polite company couldn't give a **** about them. They have the houses, the private healthcare and the children in gaelscoileanna away from the public service pressures those that have turned on the mainstream face.

what public service pressures are people in ballymun and east wall facing because people are being temporarily given shelter there? only thing I can think of is possibly that GPs are busier?

don't think i've seen anyone on here say they support unlimited numbers of refugees.

I don't think people chanting is intimidating.

Despite the Irish Times reporting children terrified and afraid they're going to be shot. Seriously. What a rag.

See with your own eyes just how intimidated the "refugees" are by protestors outside their building. (This one in East Wall)

https://twitter.com/ThoughtsToby/status/1611458477674692608