Kevin Myers article in the indo on immigration

the dept of education ,local authority system is stuck in the dark ages, when we had emigration,not 50k immigrants per year,the school planning building system is over bureaucratic ,badly designed and depends on nuns /religious orders building schools,there are areas where 7ooo houses are being built with no provision for school sites, youth centres ,playgrounds or sports grounds.the whole school building/planning system needs total redesign ,its in a state of chaos ,5000 houses are built then,5 years later dept of education starts looking round for a site to build a school on, meantime the cost of sites go up by a factor of ten.the school in laytown are short of places for 100 pupils at present.WE NEED A DEBATE ON ,how many iimigrants do we acccept, from what countrys, is government going to invest in a proper infrastructure,in schools ,sports facilitys,educational resources and a decent planning system ,for this boooming population,or just pretend they do not exist.We need a fastrack planning/construction system for nondemonitional schools paid by government who take anyone regardless of religion,this is 2006,lets move on from where the parish priest CONTROLLED ,EVERYTHING,WITH A NOD,and a wink to the local tds, is this a multicultural society ,or what?

Addilynn Tinkling Savanna wrote:

Haven't read the whole thread but it seems that some of you haven't noticed that Ireland is in the EU. No you can't just move to America because it isn't in the EU. You can move to any country in the EU you want to. It seems that Irish people like to take the good aspects of being European and then when something happens that they don't really like, moan about it. The Irish have benefitted hugely from the EU membership, and obviously from immigration. Now that Ireland is successful, suddenly the Irish are all out for themselves and not welcoming to immigrants from poorer countries, LIKE IRELAND ONCE WAS! And not so long ago. Oh how quickly we forget. It's a horrible attitude IMO. Most of the people moaning about foreigners wouldn't hesitate to buy a holiday home in Spain or move to the US, and expect to be welcomed there. Totally hypocritical.

Were that the actual case then how come ourselves, the UK and one of the scandinavian member states (Sweden?) are the only ones willing to accept immigrant workers from the then accession states?
I have no problem with give and take within the EU, god knows we've done very well out of it, but on the immigrant worker issue, the playing field should be a level one...if much bigger populated countries are unwilling to allow migrant workers from accession states then why is it we should be expected to bear the brunt of the influx especially in light of how ill-prepared our infrastructure is to cope with that influx?

What is so xenophobic about wanting to stem the flow to manageable levels?
Waht is wrong with a work permit system instead of unchecked immigration?
I'm not saying that it should always be like that but until all of the EU is going to operate on the same level, some measures should be taken to stop the whole thing turning sour and completely unmanagable...

The Irish are following a well-trodden path of European and other Western countries. In England workers were brought in to end labour shortages which made the economy boom, but that eventually short-sightness of the immigrants are going to have children seemed to have been overlooked. This is common for any government which wants to float based on an economic boom. The problems that it will create are not discussed because discussing the problems of immigration is taboo. It is a politically astute move.

The general liberal tendency to see us as all blank slates, and then contradict themselves by obsessing over diverse cultures can only lead to confuse, which in turn, morphs into stasis. The West of Dublin is already on the fast-track to becoming a ghetto, and it is now on the fast track to becoming a racially-charged ghetto.

Hobbes wrote:

Having lived in a number countries which aren't as hermit like Ireland in regards to the rest of the world I can understand why you were shocked.

But the real point is, so what? So there are black school children in our schools? Whats the problem? Are we scared our children are going to get too much black if they stand too close to them or something?

As for Kevin Myers, its like a male version of Ann Coulter.

If your posts werent so hilarious Id ask that you be banned.


What the poster is asking is that taking in so so many is a threat to Irish culture. I dont know about you, but while Ive no problem with an immigrant minority, its in nobodys interest to see an immigrant majority, which is a possibilty over the next few decades. Now maybe you want the erosion of Irish culture but I dont.

As for West Dublin as a prev poster mentioned, whilst the old corpo estates in Blanch are maybe 95% Irish, the new estates are at least 60% plus foreign. Tyrellstown school is over 90% according to a recent paper article. Now, Hobbes and co might want an Oldham and Bradford like situation whereby blacks cant walk through Corduff or Ladyswell in 20 years and Irish cant walk through Ongar, Blakestown and Tyrellstown but.....well.....that proves the intelligence of certain posters on these forums.

Its times like this I REALLY hate the ban on personal abuse.......

savoyard wrote:

Ireland must have one of the lowest proportion of immigrants in the EU. It's just that it happened so fast that society is talking a bit of time to adjust. And it's not just to immigrants - as others have pointed out, the infrastructure in Ireland hasn't caught up with the rate of progress.

I've heard numbers as high as 10% of the population, although I have no source for that. Thats not immigration, as another poster pointed out, thats an invasion, especially as its over the course of about five years. I agree with a good deal of your post however, although there are a couple of points I'd like to make.

A lot of immigrants make no effort whatsoever to integrate with the local population; this breeds trouble, plain and simple. A lot of people like to say, but the Irish were emigrating for years and other countries took us in... the Irish abroad usually make an effort to integrate with local cultures, and obey the laws. The Chinese in particular are useless at that, and a lot of them basically conned their way into the country in the first place on student visas. One fine fellow wanted me to photoshop an insurance disc for his car.

Then we have the rash of Nigerians with their nine month pregnant wives, taking advantage of the "born in Ireland" law that was recently struck from the books. These are not nice people. And yes, before it was removed from the books, it was quite a talking point in Nigeria. These are the facts, I am afraid, not my opinions. I don't know enough about the Polish or other recent entries to the EU to be able to say how well they are integrating.

And now we have slave traders from eastern europe. Lovely.

I will say however that the low wages they are prepared to work for has had a depressive effect on wages in a lot of sectors, converse to those praising immigrants for making the boom possible. What made the "boom" possible was historically low interest rates and readily available credit from the banks in 2001. Most of our new found wealth is in credit, which must be repaid over the coming decades.

For example in IT- known as the "backdoor to Europe" among certain people who want to immigrate to Ireland - wages have stagnated or even dropped since 2000, and not all of that can be blamed on the dot com crash (did that even affect us here?). On the other hand, IT is the one qualification you can get easily without having to go through annual reviews that will grant you Irish citizenship afer 5 years, although it used to be three years. Check Oasis, the goverment information website, its all there.

I would also like to say that I honestly don't think the average Irish person is racist, although a lot of people seem to take a kind of sardonic glee from saying that. Most Irish people judge others on their merits, or lack thereof, as do most people generally. The only ones that don't are those that need to feel they have some sort of intrinsic superiority, since their own merits are not sufficient to make them stand out.

As for us milking the EU's funds, it was just as important to the EU to see Ireland succeed as it was for us to take their money. And ultimately, Ireland is expected to become a net contributor to the EU. thats the full extent of our debt to the EU.

Irish people simply have no clue how to react yet. Its all just happened far too fast to a very young country that has only just come out of the doldrums. Our own culture is on shaky ground at best, and is still trying to find its feet after English occupation for so long. This enormous influx of immigrants has come at the worst possible time for us. Or maybe the best. Also, I think a lot of people harbour resentment at others coming to take advantage of their hard work, or at least thats how it is viewed. Where were all these immigrants in the 70s and 80s, trying to build the country side by side with the Irish? Fair weather friends, and all that...

The one thing that has prevented a serious negative backlash against immigration is the fear that most people have of being tagged as "racist", which would be a blight on the history of this country. Thats a term which should better be renamed a "Godwin" in this day and age. This is being taken advantage of by a lot of immigrants. IMHO, as the situation develops, however, practical concerns will take the fore, as they always do, and there will be much stronger action taken on the immigration issue than is currently being taken. How history will judge us for that is anybody's guess.

This is no longer the land of the hundred thousand welcomes, but we should not be held to blame for that.

Disclaimer: I speak four languages fluently myself, one of which is non European, and a smattering of a half dozen more, and my own girlfriend is Asian. I'd hate to be godwinned.

Eh didn't realise you were talking about that whole section of my post... here is some more linkage goodness...

From the Irish Examiner, Gardaí urge clampdown on bogus schools. From the article:

Gardaí are particularly concerned at the involvement of Chinese criminal figures in the schools fraud. Five years ago Chinese language students in Ireland numbered just a few hundred but last year this rose to 30,000.

"They are springing up one after the other and in almost all cases where there are problems there is involvement by Chinese nationals somewhere in the running of those colleges," Det Chief Supt Donnellan said.


Sex slave trafficking from Eastern Europe to Ireland. (Google cache since its a word document). From that article...

Ireland is a transit and destination country for trafficking in women and children, mainly for women and girls from Eastern Europe, Africa, and South America.

Factors That Contribute to the Trafficking Infrastructure :
Evidence suggests that organized criminal gangs are helping international traffickers establish trafficking routes in Ireland.1 Links between the Irish sex industry and the Russian mafia have been reported. Of particular concern to the Irish police, known as Gardai, is the growing presence of Russian and Albanian mafias.

And the last one, heres an article that states 8-9% of the Irish populaton is immigrants, citing the CSO.

The number of non-nationals living in the State is estimated to be 350,000, accounting for 8-9 percent of the population of 4.13 million currently living here, according to CSO estimates.

Although I have to say I find the rest of the article a bit suspect, to put it mildly.

it seems to me the government is quite happy to take the extra taxs prsi and stamp duty caused by immigration,rising houses prices,while neglecting to pay for the extra education/services resources,eg schools playgrounds needed in certain areas like blanchardstown ,dublin west where those immigrants setttle in.there are many areas in dublin with no sports faciltys for young people ,apart from swimming pools where you have to pay entrance fee.

Nermal wrote:

nothing will speed the process along further like that nonsense you spout about irish culture is being eroded.

Oh yes, Ireland is different, the fundamentals are stronger..where did we hear that before?
At the end of the day, if its happened in every other country, it can happen here.