Immigration and Ireland - MEGATHREAD *Mod Note Added 14/08/25*

We had barely left the covid travel restrictions when the Ukraine war started in 2022. Tourism was decimated and we were still in an era of 'new normal' and unsure whether foreign travellers would ever return to previous numbers. At that time I wouldn't blame the hotel owners for niavely accepting a very generous offer from the government.

The problem is, in their strive to make their own ends meet, they overlooked taking the beds out of tourist sector would have on the ancillary businesses. These then struggle, often closing and tourists have no interest in an area due to lack of amenities. Also, the hotel owners were in a quandary, they became hooked on the easy money but also morally they would get a backlash if they evicted the poor Ukrainian who were fleeing war.

Yes the hoteliers took the money, but it was EU and government policies that started this idea of turning so many hotels across europe into asylum accommodation.

On that last bit -

Yes the hoteliers took the money, but it was EU and government policies that started this idea of turning so many hotels across europe into asylum accommodation.

That is simply not true. It was not EU and Government policies that started the idea of turning so many hotels across Europe into asylum accommodations. Hotels in Ireland, for years, have received payments from the State to provide emergency accommodation for people who are homeless -

The report reveals that over €1.84 billion has been spent on providing emergency accommodation since 2013, with an increasing share going to private, for-profit providers.

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/majority-of-spending-on-homelessness-directed-toward-emergency-accommodation-1744246.html

Hotel owners saw an opportunity with the war in Ukraine, and sought to profit from what they imagined would be a guaranteed income that wasn’t dependent on seasonal tourism. They signed contracts in the hope of making easy money, they weren’t naive, they were just greedy, and so I have no sympathy for them whatsoever that they signed contracts with Government expecting payment for the provision of goods and services to the State would be swift.

Anyone with any experience of Government contracts would have been able to tell them that when it comes to payments for services rendered, ‘swift’ is not a word easily associated with the speed at which payments will be made. In reality they’re likely to be waiting years.

This is revisionist nonsense, the hoteliers didn't propose 100,000 Ukrainians come to Ireland, that policy came from government. Yes, the hoteliers obliged, but again we were coming out of covid restrictions and their future occupancy levels were unknown.

One thing that virtually nobody factored in was that the Russian-Ukrainian war would go on for so long. The working assumption in Europe was that it might last for 6 to 12 months, some sort of a permanent ceasefire declared and the Ukrainian refugee crisis would begin to resolve itself.

The fact that the war has been going on for three and a half years at full pelt and with no sign of it stopping has probably taken everyone by surprise and means the refugee issue is totally unresolved.

Imagine originally providing €220 a week, free accommodation in state provided facilities, free healthcare and the list goes on

You dont give them bonkers benefits in the first place which caused more and more to come. Hell the benefits were better than what they would received working in Ukraine.

This government created this pulling affect and they're still at it with building lovely modular homes for them in Clonmel

For sure, but most governments were working on the assumption that the war would be over very quickly (probably by mid to late summer 2022) and that the Ukrainian refugee crisis in Europe would be only a 'temporary' phenomenon. If you had told leaders back then the war would still be going strong in July 2025 (it's nearly as long as WW1 at this point) and with not even a hint of a peace deal in sight, they would have been totally taken aback - they may well have made different types of decisions about the refugee situation.

I dont care, they should of been treated the same as IPAS.

You're excusing this governments incompetence here. The average monthly wages for Ukrainians was €500-600 a MONTH, this government gave them 220 euro a WEEK. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out what's going to happen next. At the end of the day it's human nature, they are going to flock to the country to get their benefits. It doesn't surprise me though this government just throws the money around like confetti without having any strategic plan.

https://x.com/IrishTimesOpEd/status/1946436372639924558

It has taken a while, but eventually most people accept the laws of demand and supply.

Massive immigration does affect the demand for housing, and if we can't increase supply enough, then we must look to reducing demand, if we are to prevent prices continuing to rise rapidly.

I have long called for the prompt removal of the 100,000+ bogus asylum-seekers, whose claims have failed, and I now call for the 80,000 UKR refugees to be sent home when the war ends. However, the bad news is that the Govt wants them both to stay.

Also, I call for limits on work and student visas, even though that would hurt my employer. Non-EU immigrants who are builders are welcome, I suggest attracting more of them, not food delivery workers.

Unless these opinion pieces come with an apology and a massive amount of humble pie, I'm not interested in what McWilliams or any other correspondent or politican has to say. They all stood by, often capitalising on the situation, while dividing the country, pushing a narrative that when called out by many people, wwas met with slurs, smears and a general view, that the commoners should pipe down and not speak out of turn. For them to turn around now, stating what we have stated for years as if it was always known is all empty words.

Non-EU immigrants who are builders are welcome, I suggest attracting more of them, not food delivery workers.

I’m not sure you’ve thought that through - we’re going to need more non-EU immigrant food delivery workers too to deliver take-out to all the non-EU immigrant builders being accommodated in hotels while the hotel owners aren’t being paid because the State needs to fund the construction industry!

I'm not defending Dwyer or you.

On the extremes there appear to be two camps, those who hate the portion of IPAS who are in fact economic migrants and those who hate those Irish who are insufficiency aligned with what they believe to be LGBTQ+ and all welcome ideology.

Both camps are hate filled and I'm aligned with neither. The small number of LGBTQ friends I have are in general very nice and considered and not going berserk over Dwyer. In fairness, I'm a bit removed from everything but still I have yet to hear of anyone I know personally talking about Dwyer outside the PBB lads.

I'm not into the hate but not so blind I can't see there is an issue with supply and demand.

I gave an example of real issues that occured beside us.

Philip Dwyer is someone I would view as a nuisance in a similar vein as the scientologists but less effective. We live in Ireland, there's all sorts of weird **** and it's not criminal. I know quite a lot of people in Bray through soccer. Not one person has mentioned Dwyer.

I've nothing more to say on Dwyer. Shout at Dwyer if you want, nothing I can do about either of you shouting at each other if that's what you want.

actually feeling sick to my stomach reading just a few posts. I'm not sure if people know that this stuff of mass immigration is not only going on in Ireland. It's the same in Germany! And in almost any other european country! It's to bring whole Europe down/get rid of all the fantastic completely different european cultures living peacefully next to each other. Making it one big country with a mass of people with no real identity anymore, easy to guard and manipulate further whenever they want. And then telling us the opposite, about diversity and all this endless crap.

It's also about actively bringing Europe down economy wise. who didn't realised this yet is living in cloud cuckoo land. In germany, ones known for it's thriving middle class businesses, family businesses, they are erased in kind of 5 years !!, starting with corona. Same scumbag methods to bring businesses down as I read here are happening in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

This is the worst thing happening in the recent history of Europe. It's the end of Europe as it was. People should really go to the streets about this for themselves living here and not wanting to go down with their culture. But strangely, they fear the 'far right', which are just a media made up threat, the real threat are the people who constantly make up the 'far right', but they are the real fascist. the far left fascist with teir f*** rainbow flag. Can't see this sh*** thing anymore.

That'd be all well and good if refugees from elsewhere staying in Ireland didn't balloon since as well. They used Ukraine as a Trojan horse per se.

We're winning lads if even the Irish times is starting to spread the truth on immigration. They could do with a apology piece to all those they called far right racist the past 2 years. We all knew it and those who argued against us are starting to look like fools. That we also knew.