Immigration and Ireland - MEGATHREAD *Mod Note Added 02/09/25*

I think with regard to multinationals, the issue is not so much have their presence made Ireland a better place since the grim days of the 1980s. Clearly they have. Back in the those when there was high unemployment any solution was better than nothing. They may not be indigenous industry but they did employ Irish people when the Irish needed jobs.

The mistake, I think, is thinking that because they got us out of a hole in the 1980s that more of them now will solve our problems when, in fact, they may just get us into another hole. Further expansion of the multinational sector in the current full employment means bringing more people in. They will need places to live putting further pressure on housing meaning more young Irish people either have to leave the country or stay with their parents longer.

A lot of the problems are being hidden because in Ireland it is more socially acceptable to live with your parents in adulthood than other countries. Already, most of those coming in are from outside the EU. Those from the EU won't come in the numbers required because of high housing costs.

That is not to say we should get rid of multinationals but they need to understand that if they want workers, they must recruit from the Irish and EU population, paying sufficient wages to attract them. It should be the same for any business. If you can't pay sufficient to attract staff in the country you are operating in, then you don't have a viable business model and bringing in workers from the developing world to lower wages and push up housing costs should not be an option.

They are educated and qualified but it is not the country that requires them it is the multinational. For example, a multinational might have job opening for an expert in some niche technology. From Ireland's point of view, they pay income taxes here and the corporation pays corporation tax and there are various other taxes that Ireland benefits from. This is good. But that person also takes up housing space which we do not have.

The problems in Ireland are not that we are short of tax money and nor are we short of jobs, though in the past both of these were in short supply. The problems now are capacity-based.

So the question is, is the extra tax we get from bringing someone in to the country sufficient to offset the fact that an Irish person may not be able to find accommodation?

Some would say yes. But I don't think the last few years bear them out. Evidence for this is that EU citizens who don't need any visa to live and work here are no longer arriving in the numbers they used to. It is simply not worth their while doing so. Now, and only in the last few years, it is overwhelmingly non-EU immigrants. Why aren't they coming if our policies are working out so well? And why are Irish people also starting to leave? To bring EU citizens in you would need to pay them a much higher wage than, say, an Indian, to do the same job. Otherwise they will not come as they already live in a developed country and don't need the housing problems they would have if they moved here.

You agree the problem is housing but say that is a common problem in successful cities. I think this is an example of how people get their priorities wrong. If a city or a country fails on housing, a fundamental requisite for living, then it is not a successful city or country; it is a city or country that can't provide housing. As an aside, it is not even a symptom of narrow financial success. There are plenty of poor cities that also have chronic housing problems.

The state is spending at last time of checking, approx €40m on lovely modular home estate in Clonmel. This we're told is for approx 300 Ukrainians. It has been built without planning as its construction is deemed exempt. This isn't just portacabins in a field, it's a serious construction site, with substantial groundworks.

Now why could this urgency not have been afforded to our own, people waiting on housing lists for years. And also let's not forget, the €40m (which could possibly rise) is only the construction cost, it doesn't include the cost of state benefits benefits being paid to its future residents.

Non-working immigrants and non-genuine seekers of asylum are the most egregious aspects of it but not the only aspects. As an analogy hotel has a certain capacity and obviously non-paying guests are to be avoided but even if all guests are paying, there's still only so many guests that can be accommodated. And it is no fault of the guests. There are only so many rooms that can be filled.

It is harder to put a figure on the capacity of a country like Ireland to take immigrants and obviously those we we do take should pay taxes but there's still only so many and I think we've gone beyond that number. That does not mean deportations but it means a slowing down of new immigration and greater focus on those the country needs rather than merely the desires of employers.

If your are going to be outraged over something, shouldn't you at least understand what it is you are outraged about. This isn't irrelevant details.

Why no urgency for our own? If you understood the why and the how then you might be able to answer your own question

Dublin made it into the top 10 most unsafe cities in Europe last month. No doubt in Sweden they started off with machetes before progressing to guns n bombs. This could be as good as it gets for Dublin for the foreseeable and with our policing levels it could easily get worse

Not only have I searched the exemption I've seen the exemption used in three location in Limerick City centre, the government signed off on the exemption and I think people are rightly questioning if they could give exemptions to planning a planning system in Ireland that joe soap public must go thru which is quite onerous but exempt this type of development could same exemption not have been used to help with our own homeless numbers, lest not forget those using the planning exemption are being paid very handsomely to provide IPAs accommodation.

What's embarrassing is that we can build homes for foreigners, bypassing laws and rules that apply to regular citizens. No amount of money is spared for the charade, but when I or others point out the discrepancies, we're the problem. Something very wrong going on in this country.

I bet over 80% of them have always been bogus. There's just a different instruction coming down the line now.

Mod - warned for ignoring moderator instruction