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

I was surprised to see it ranked so much higher than the war in Ukraine, which we could have at least some influence on. And the trump administration ranking, separately to tariffs...

The fact that a policy is bad doesnt mean immigrants as people are bad. I differentiate between the two.

Political leadership in Ireland has always been concentrated in the land, whether landlords, lawyers involved in planning disputes, big farmers etc.

I strongly believe that one of the goals of current immigration policy is to benefit landlords and asylum lawyers.

I think the work permit and student visa situation - while not the fault of the immigrants themselves - is putting upward pressure on house prices. Economist Cormac Lucey said some some years ago on the radio. This is especially the case because they tend to be more high-income than asylum seekers.

The fact that tuition fees are free, though there are still registration fees (mine were €2000 a year in 1998-2003), means that universities are forced to attract foreign students who do pay them. This would not have to happen if the government properly resourced universities.

We also need to properly resource universities so we can grow domestic innovation, including inventions that can patented and generate economic growth in Ireland.

The demographic change in certain parts of Dublin is astounding.

You walk down the street and struggle to pass a single Irish person. It’d make you feel like a stranger in your own country.

I’m all for bringing in immigrants to fill roles in the health service etc but what we are dealing with now is beyond the pale.

It’s the young people I feel bad for. They’ll have to grow up with the consequences of this **** show which was brought to bear by just 2-3 governments.

It’s not remotely bizarre Stephen that a polling company would deliver exactly what the client wants -

We work with Academics, NGOs, State-bodies and corporates 

https://www.irelandthinks.ie

It’s not at all bizarre either that absent from the poll choices are Education, Employment, Welfare and Pensions.

I dunno why you’d think it was bizarre for me when I’m aware that housing and immigration are narratives which are constantly being pushed by mainstream media to the point that they overshadow pretty much all else. It makes sense that they would be at the forefront of people’s minds as priorities that should be dealt with. Did you also notice that the poll doesn’t suggest who should be dealing with the issues, or how the issues should be dealt with? It’s Chicken Licken stuff Stephen, clickbait headline grabbing nonsense, designed to generate revenue for the clients who commissioned the poll.

It grinds my gears to read the underlying tone of accusations of racism in this thread. I've been hospitalised in the Oncology ward of UHL 6/7 times since last September. I would say that 75 per cent of the staff - doctors, nurses, kitchen etc are all foreign nationals. Each and every one of them are excellent workers . These workers are very much needed and are contributing to our society financially etc. My issue, and I think most posters issue, is with the free loading economic migrants who are arriving in Ireland after passing through numerous safe countries to get here to avail of our ridiculous handouts. I very much doubt that even 10 per cent of them are genuinely fleeing persecution. It's unsustainable and needs to stop immediately. I have an adult child living with me, who is earning good money and saving like mad for a house. He hasn't a hope. He can't even get a place to rent. He's working with asylum seekers who have been housed by the city council, for 60 euros a week. It's all wrong.

I know you’re not in Ireland but I thought we were on the same planet at the very least, apparently not

Your child isn’t competing with the 10% of asylum seekers who are being housed by the council for €60 a week though. He’s competing with the 100% of people who are also renting or paying a mortgage, some of whom are employed and working in UHL who have to live somewhere, either paying eye-watering rent, or a mortgage, and then there are those who will have inherited property from their relatives (be they parents, grandparents, or uncles and aunts).

Even the free-loading migrants you speak of whom you claim are availing of generous handouts (that your child would also be entitled to if they weren’t living with you), aren’t availing of or benefitting from the public healthcare system to anything like the degree that Irish people do.

As for the staff in UHL themselves? That 75% figure is what’s ridiculous, unless the 25% of staff who are Irish nationals (not sure how you checked who was who!) are part of the 1 in 10 who report being the victim of unlawful discrimination -

One in 10 staff said they had experienced discrimination in the workplace from patients, their relatives, or members of the public. These incidents included discrimination because of race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation or a disability.

Sources:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35005673/

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/staff-at-uhl-say-they-are-demoralised-by-media-coverage-about-the-hospital/a1473262374.html

I hope to God your son isn’t this guy -

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41080355.html

Similar to golden girl your opinion is anecdotal.

Seeing one doctor of foreign origin is not proof that our healthcare was dependent on foreign doctors.

If you want to backup your opinion with facts im all ears.

But im fairly confident that it was less than 10% up to the 00s. Then there was an infux of economic migrants into the country in all industries including the HSE.

Now we have around 35% foreign educated doctors. Which is a failing by the Government and HSE as we should not be that dependent on foreign educated workers for critical roles.

Taking in immigrants to work in certain sectors and industries will be necessary permanently. Spending vast amounts of taxpayers moneys replacing the tourism industry with the asylum seeker/human trafficking industry is a different story though.

It would be, if that’s what were actually happening. It’s not though, and there are numerous reasons why it’s not happening. For one thing, the tourism industry isn’t being replaced, in fact it isn’t going anywhere with Government plans to spend €1Bn of public funds investing in the industry to promote tourism in Ireland. That’s on top of the fact that the tourism industry generates revenues of approximately €700m in just the last year alone!

The asylum seeker industry (I’m not going to quibble, but if you have evidence of human trafficking, I suggest you report it to Gardaí), is a completely separate industry from the tourism industry. Though in that industry too, there’s a few people making an awful lot of money, being paid for their services out of public funds, because they are providing a service to the State (they’re a business, not a charity, although in modern Ireland the line between those two is pretty vague I grant you). The people making the most money, are Irish, born, bred and reared here. An example was given earlier in the discussion of one family who received approximately €200m in payments from the State for services rendered.

Hotel owners have been left somewhat out of pocket, though the fact they’re not being paid out of public funds leaves little wiggle room for anyone complaining about ‘taxpayers money’ (public funds) being spent on the asylum seeker industry at the expense of the tourism industry. The tourism industry is doing just fine when as an example - I wanted to book a hotel in a midlands town (fcukall spectacular about the place and little in the way of tourism attractions), it would have cost me the guts of €1k for two nights for two people. I wasn’t expecting to hang out with Kim and Kanye ffs, just looking for a standard room! That kind of greed is what kills the hotel industry a lot faster than providing accommodation for asylum seekers.

The government have been using tax payers money to pay hotels far far beyond realistic profits they would get through tourism. Essentially they are paying hotels to drop tourism and convert to the asylum seeker industry. That is intentional industry replacement.

Many goverment politicians and connections are linked to such hotels, which explains why we are paying way beyond what is necessary to get these beds for asylum seekers. Either the government are trying to help asylum seekers or it's human trafficking for profit. Most of us know which is true, the minority will be surprised and shocked in a few years when the main stream media start reporting this.

Tourism in Ireland generated 700 million in the last year alone according to u Jack. Slight bit off there, if you lived here you'd realize it's a hell of a lot more important than that.

'Tourism is Ireland's largest indigenous industry and biggest employer with 257,900 people working in the sector. Ireland took in €6.2 billion from overseas tourists in 2024, although the number of bed-nights was down 3 per cent.28 Mar 2025'

Pokeherking

"You must see in binary code or something."

Or, some people look at that Peter Griffin skin colour meme but in reverse, with brown OK, white not OK.

Everything is seen through that filter, facts and reality don't impinge on their worldview.

They're not paying hotels to drop tourism though? A practice developed in Ireland where the State paid hotels to provide emergency accomodation for people who were homeless and from that practice came the idea of hotels providing accomodation for asylum seekers. It's certainly not beyond the realistic profits the same hotels would have gotten from tourism, but what it is, is a steady income that hoteliers wouldn't have gotten otherwise. There's a bit of both in terms of Government trying to help asylum seekers, and hoteliers making enormous profits from an industry that has developed around providing accomodation for asylum seekers.

It's their own greed that got them though as more and more tourists are foregoing hotels in favour of short-term lettings, though you're not wrong about politicians with vested interests either -

Michael Healy Rae, Minister for State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine explained that he feels there needs to be a balance struck between accommodation for people living in an area, and such designed for tourists. 

“It’s gotten more difficult for people to secure accommodation in the private market," Mr Healy-Rae said. 

However, he believes that “If we drive the short-term renters out, [it] would be bad for tourism, bad for our small shops, and small businesses.” 

“People with farmhouses that they’ve rented out, or flats that they’ve rented out, on a short-term basis didn’t create the housing crisis in Ireland nor neither are they the solution to it.”

Short-term lets: Huge disparity limiting options for local residents | Newstalk