Immigration and Ireland - MEGATHREAD *Read OP for mod warnings before posting*

Is it common sense though? He appears to be suggesting that immigration has somehow caused the housing crisis, when the fact is that the Irish state built a hugely inadequate number of new houses and social housing for the last 10 or 15 years, perhaps hundreds of thousands of houses short where we should be in 2025.

Reducing demand, instead of increasing supply seems a quite peculiar way of addressing the housing shortage situation i.e. identifying demand as the 'problem' and something that needs to be stamped out. This is almost heading into Trump style economics and solutions.

Also, thinking we can turn on and off immigration like a tap is a fallacy. Five years ago, net immigration to Ireland was zero because of Covid. Ten years ago, net immigration was zero because of the global financial crash and the IMF bailout. Who knows what's coming around the corner.

Should we be taking active steps to stop the Irish born population from growing as well then? According to O'Brien and his devotees, 'demand' is the issue that needs to be stamped out.

In reality both demand and supply need to be managed. There's no point in just building more homes as, without immigration control, these will just be filled up with people from abroad and we'll be back to square one. We know that housing itself has become a bottleneck for more immigration.

At the same time, even with the necessary control of immigration, we still need to build more houses to rectify lack of building in recent years as you correctly point out.

Your mistake, if you don't mind me saying so, is the belief that there must only be one cause of a complex issue.

After the last housing bubble and what that did to us I don't think it would be responsible to build enough houses for natives + massive amounts arriving annually. You want to create a mega bubble? Do uo want our grand kids paying off a 500BN debt?

The reality was we were not in a position to build a huge number so massive numbers of foreigners arriving was always going to be a social disaster.

https://archive.is/20250407104325/https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/ministers-warn-of-significant-costs-of-immigration-plans-9c5vh53f8

It wasn't long ago the media and the politicians were telling us this rhetoric was nonsense and far right propaganda. Shame on them obviously but shame on anyone in the public who went along with the propaganda. You're complicit too.

I have nothing against his comments about immigration except I don't agree .

I have no intention of deleting the previous comment as I am entitled to my opinion of him.

Many more giving their opinions of people here ..do you ask them all to delete those comments ?

I gave my opinion , you gave yours, good luck to you .

My understanding is though that we are totally free to limit the numbers of work visas and student visas for non-EU citizens in any given year (and every year in fact). It's not even entirely clear what Dan O'Brien is calling for here - is that what he means, simply reduce the number of work visas for non-EU workers from now on?

I'm glad you clarified that not everyone who spoke or attended any of the marches were either rapists or racists. I'm sure it wasn't your intention to tarnish every person attending as a rapist or racist. I'm sure you aren't trying to tarnish posters who support stricter policies on immigration here with the same rhetoric.

The problem in Ireland is weak politicians who are so caught up in PC culture/wokeism that they are afraid to say we need a stricter immigration policy least they be called racist, they would prefer to belittle and gaslight communities into taking tens if not hundreds of economic migrants into their communities on the pretense they are all fleeing war. To his credit Jim O Callaghan has decided to take a stricter approach to claimants who are not entitled to seek asylum in Ireland. If the sole reason that people are marching is they are racist you might explain the lack of protests from 2000 onwards to immigration increases?

You've asked this question a lot so please read this and pay attention. It's clearly not "faster processing" and if deterrents aren't in place you'll just get an increase with faster processing.

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/62576/denmark-unprecedented-measures-to-signal-to-migrants-they-are-not-welcome

Denmark used to have a reputation throughout the world as a liberal haven known for welcoming foreigners. However, this image has changed drastically in the past few years, as a series of new policies have made the Nordic nation rather unattractive for migrants and even for many refugees.

Sounds like what I say needs to happen here.

"zero vision" stance: a goal to reduce the number of asylum applicants in the country to zero."

"Family reunification rules were tightened, deportation practices were increased, and social benefit payments for asylum seekers were lowered."

"guards along the country's fortified borders are allowed to confiscate all personal items of value from irregular migrants crossing the border to help fund the costs associated with asylum procedures as well as housing."

"If an asylum application is rejected, there are no more monetary benefits paid. Failed asylum seekers only receive food but no money at all after this change in legislation."

There are so many other examples in there so here you go. I want our country run like Denmark.

Is Jim O Callaghan racist? He wants stricter immigration controls?

Is pascal donohue racist he has said in the article another poster has referenced above that

A number of ministers voiced their concerns, however, about the “lack of clarity” around anticipated asylum seeker numbers with Paschal Donohoe, the minister for finance, warning that any unexpected spike in costs could “risk undermining fiscal stability”.

James Browne, the minister for housing, said that the “increase in volume and pace of international protection is a significant driver in social housing demand and local authority homeless accommodation”.

According to a cabinet document, Browne also said that local authorities have reported that family reunification is “leading to increased presentations to homeless services as families arrive in the state with no accommodation available”.

It added: “Recent trends indicate that demand for state support and interventions are increasing significantly and are out of pace with the existing scale of supply of social housing or private sector development, particularly in the rental market.”

The document says that it is the minister’s view that “unless the supply of housing rises to meet overall demand, the housing market as a whole can be expected to become increasingly impacted by lack of availability. There is also the likelihood of growing social tensions as government seeks to support those vulnerable cohorts in the context of intense competition for adequate housing.”

Browne warned that further increases in the numbers requiring homeless emergency accommodation could lead to a situation where the system is “not able to respond to demand”.

He pointed out that the “character and nature of the specific elements of migration” are an important consideration in setting housing targets. Ministers were told that 25 per cent of the households on social housing waiting lists are non-Irish.

In January 2025, 48 per cent of adults in emergency accommodation were non-Irish citizens, which was up from 36 per cent in April 2022. In Dublin, 56 per cent of adults in emergency accommodation have a non-Irish citizenship.

The housing minister added in his contribution that he was keen to support O’Callaghan in his plans to update the laws.

Donohoe, meanwhile, said it was “difficult to get a clear sense of all the costs involved in implementing the pact, given the lack of clarity in terms of anticipated applications next year, as well as the lack of detail in terms of the accommodation strategy to be developed, but it is clear that significant expenditure will be required in relation to the new systems”.

He said that all costs should be agreed with the Department of Public Expenditure as “any upward revisions of budgetary estimates could significantly reduce the ability of government to deliver on its other expenditure commitments and risk undermining fiscal stability”.

There are 15,000 people in emergency accomadation now. People are moving from IPAS into emergency accomadation and the numbers will be forever increasing. There are no houses for these people so those numbers have to increase once a decision is granted on asylum. Over 7500 are non nationals moving presumably from IPAS to emergency accomadation. There are over 33,000 people in IPAS so we are paying now for over 40,000. The vast majoirty of whom are economic migrants. That number will continue to build, we are predicted to build less housing this year than last year.

I concluded that you are using the infamous left wing strategy of guilt by association. Everyone who disagrees with you is implicated as a rapist and racist because of a small number of people who I would prefer to see no where near the protests, the vacuum left by a class of politicians beholden to "progressivism" has allowed a number of very unsavoury characters dominate the narrative. But at least mine and other posters concerns are becoming more mainstream.

Imagine Pascal saying other services are going to suffer because of our spending on asylum knowing that the vast majoirity of asylum seekers are economic migrants and we don't need to be spending any money on them. The only people benefitting are the rich landlords and associates of politicians. Every newspaper in the country should be investigating where the money is going.

I don't think under resourcing is the main problem. If you provide more free resources then more will come.

Indeed. It's very simple to address really (as illustrated by the Danish example posted above). Cut the benefits and freebies and you cut the pull factor for those who have nothing to offer but a sad story or hand out.

There's nothing in those Danish examples that couldn't be done here pretty much overnight with the right political will. We've seen during Covid how fast things can be done with the right motivation.

I have no sympathy for chancers attempting to game the system (native or otherwise by the way!) and I have even less tolerance for antisocial or criminal types causing problems in the community, especially if those people shouldn't be here in the first place!

Ireland continues to face a housing and costs of living crisis that absolutely has been stoked by primarily FG over the last 15 years (while simultaneously squandering the economic recovery), and is being exacerbated by the incompetence of the current lot because of know-nothing dolts like Simon Harris and Helen McEntee, and status chasers like Micheal Martin who last time just wanted to be Taoiseach, and this time seems to only want to play international statesman before he retires on our very generous pension payouts for political failures.

As I've said many times before, Ireland is a small island with a population less than most major cities. We are wholly dependent on and subject to the whims of international trade, investment and tourism, and we have a lot of serious long-standing domestic challenges and problems without importing hundreds of thousands of people that we have no obligations to, or responsibility for.

I don't want my country artificially repopulated and fundamentally changed by the "culture" (of dependency, disrespect and entitlement - to say nothing of the more serious problems we've seen) many of these people seem to be bringing with them, nor do I want our limited resources to be spread even more thinly by accommodating and supporting them with every hotel, warehouse, or rental property repurposed in the process.

If you arrive here legally, with needed skills to offer and the ability to support yourself from the start, then welcome to Ireland... But if you arrive here in a container or without documents seeking to bypass our laws, are claiming asylum when really again trying to bypass our laws as an economic refugee, or you cause serious problems while you're here - then back to wherever you came from/last arrived from/wherever else will have you!!

I make no apologies for that. My loyalty and my priorities are to my family, my community, and our country - not to any randomer who lands here chancing their arm.

It's as simple as that. Anything else is nonsensical whataboutery that has no basis in the reality being faced by the country or the reality of politics which only requires the right climate or pressure to bring changes that beforehand would have seemed impossible or unpalletable.

And those changes are coming, make no mistake. It happened before (with water charges protests and before that the anti drugs marches of the 90s), and it is happening again and the politicians know it.

Personally I think the moral superiority of politicians was to mask an inherent intellectual laziness, they would have liked if it just went away as an issue, that was the easiest outcome. Of course it didn’t work out.

The centre has changed on this and some of the more ideologically driven are being exposed.

If 5,000 people a year were arriving, then opposition probably would be motivated by xenophobia. When the amount of immigration is dozens of times that number looking for a drop is just commonsense.

Bizarre that some people claim there isn’t a link between the housing crisis and immigration.