How quickly can you learn to speak Polish?

Sgt Hartman wrote: »

In fairness, the Dutch and the Germans aren't entering the country in the same numbers as the Poles are.

So? They are still foreigners.

Oh those filthy Poles takin' our jobs and charmin' our men....

Sgt Hartman wrote: »

According to the link below, if current trends continue, we'll be an ethnic minority in our own country by 2050

Pretty much every demographic prediction based on trends in history has been shown to be hopelessly wrong in time. But good luck with that one.

Tha Gopher wrote: »

So only accountants and lawyers matter? Taxi drivers, builders, chefs and any other trade under pressure from uncontrolled migration can go fcuk themselves with their whinging?

You arrive in this country with little english or little money, you take what you can get...for the most part those are the lower tier levels of work, manual or repetitive labour, work with long or unsocial hours, dirty work.
As regards the Polish, it's rather ironic that for the most part that these are the jobs they need to take to pay bills...most of them are well educated and in a lot of cases, qualified for higher earning (and status) posts.

Two for instances I can think of; one 22yr old guy, graduated as an accountant, with little to no english who had to take up a job as a decorator's labourer, for near minimum wage. I asked why didn't he do something he was trained to do...the english he has combined with the different practices in accounting over here meant that he can't take up that sort of work for a while. That was 2 yrs ago...last I heard he was still labouring.
Another 2 youngish girls who work in the pub my Mum drinks in, one Polish, one Latvian...the polish a qualified teacher, again with only basic english, the latvian with some sort of law qualification...they wash glasses and wait tables at lunchtime.

These people will (or should) progress up the ladder and do what they're qualified to do...but it probably won't happen for them here. They are unlikely to threaten the jobs of civil servants or those in the more qualified positions in the private sector.

People this is all about money....the rich (developers, landlords, business owners etc etc) will turn around and call the poorer manual workers "racist" or "bigots" for criticising immigrants and immigration policy...this isn't because they care about either what the poor(er) think or how the immigrants feel about it....it's solely to do with their bank balance.
The influx of foreign labour has added a short term boost to our economy, but that boost has for the most part gone straight into the wallets of those who already had money anyhow and who want to keep the cash flowing.
Fianna Fail as the party that represents those rich (and those that get the crumbs from their tables) will try and shove any bullsh*t policies they can dream of down the throats of the Irish people saying it's "good for the economy"...when of course what it's really only good for is their economy.

Call me racist and a bigot all you want...I have absolutely nothing against the common man (or woman) wanting a better life and emigrating to here to find it...what I do have a problem with is the open door policy that undermines local workers in the lower tiers of the labour force, what I do have a problem with is the short sighted idiots who can't see issues like funding for the extra school places and teachers needed for their kids or staff for the extra hospital beds required, what I do have a problem with is the fact that if the economy follows world trends and goes down the swanee, that many of these immigrants end up on the social welfare teet alongside the already displaced natives and of course the ever present dole scroungers.

We (sorry the revenue and the already rich) make money for a decade, maybe a decade and a half on the back of all this immigrant labour...but the whole damn country pays for it for the next who knows how long? I've heard it said that "Oh when there's no work they'll go home"...why would they? Our State has a duty of care to them, has to house them, pay them social welfare (which for many of them is still more money than they'd get at home doing what they're qualified to do) look after their and their childrens health and education needs....all whilst the country is up to it's eyes in consumer debt.

Yep, great for the economy that...

Wertz wrote: »

You arrive in this country with little english or little money, you take what you can get...for the most part those are the lower tier levels of work, manual or repetitive labour, work with long or unsocial hours, dirty work.
As regards the Polish, it's rather ironic that for the most part that these are the jobs they need to take to pay bills...most of them are well educated and in a lot of cases, qualified for higher earning (and status) posts.

Two for instances I can think of; one 22yr old guy, graduated as an accountant, with little to no english who had to take up a job as a decorator's labourer, for near minimum wage. I asked why didn't he do something he was trained to do...the english he has combined with the different practices in accounting over here meant that he can't take up that sort of work for a while. That was 2 yrs ago...last I heard he was still labouring.
Another 2 youngish girls who work in the pub my Mum drinks in, one Polish, one Latvian...the polish a qualified teacher, again with only basic english, the latvian with some sort of law qualification...they wash glasses and wait tables at lunchtime.

These people will (or should) progress up the ladder and do what they're qualified to do...but it probably won't happen for them here. They are unlikely to threaten the jobs of civil servants or those in the more qualified positions in the private sector.

People this is all about money....the rich (developers, landlords, business owners etc etc) will turn around and call the poorer manual workers "racist" or "bigots" for criticising immigrants and immigration policy...this isn't because they care about either what the poor(er) think or how the immigrants feel about it....it's solely to do with their bank balance.
The influx of foreign labour has added a short term boost to our economy, but that boost has for the most part gone straight into the wallets of those who already had money anyhow and who want to keep the cash flowing.
Fianna Fail as the party that represents those rich (and those that get the crumbs from their tables) will try and shove any bullsh*t policies they can dream of down the throats of the Irish people saying it's "good for the economy"...when of course what it's really only good for is their economy.

Call me racist and a bigot all you want...I have absolutely nothing against the common man (or woman) wanting a better life and emigrating to here to find it...what I do have a problem with is the open door policy that undermines local workers in the lower tiers of the labour force, what I do have a problem with is the short sighted idiots who can't see issues like funding for the extra school places and teachers needed for their kids or staff for the extra hospital beds required, what I do have a problem with is the fact that if the economy follows world trends and goes down the swanee, that many of these immigrants end up on the social welfare teet alongside the already displaced natives and of course the ever present dole scroungers.

We (sorry the revenue and the already rich) make money for a decade, maybe a decade and a half on the back of all this immigrant labour...but the whole damn country pays for it for the next who knows how long? I've heard it said that "Oh when there's no work they'll go home"...why would they? Our State has a duty of care to them, has to house them, pay them social welfare (which for many of them is still more money than they'd get at home doing what they're qualified to do) look after their and their childrens health and education needs....all whilst the country is up to it's eyes in consumer debt.

Yep, great for the economy that...

I can see some of your points, but you have to realise that is these if immigrants weren't here keeping wage levels down then we would be even more uncompetitive internationally. Wages in Ireland are simply too high and this is why fewer foreign companies (bloody foreigners) are locating here. You need to take your mind off the people at the top making a fortune and widen your scope a bit to see the reality of the situation. Yes, these immigrants will move elsewhere when the going is good, such as the influx of EE to Germany right now. I think you are being very presumptious to think that all EE's will happily sit on their arse and collect the dole instead of looking for work elsewhere. It is this kind of thinking that makes me shout 'bigot'.

Sgt Hartman wrote: »

I really DO hope that this prediction turns out to be false. Although saying that, areas in British cities such as London, Birmingham and especially Bradford have become majority ethnic areas. This is after over forty years of immigration. Due to a "capless" immigration policy we have absorbed an unbelievable amount of immigrants only in the last FIVE years.With these current immigration trends in this country, who's to say it won't happen to us. Take a look at Dublin 15 if you don't belive me.

Of course, and current trends are a good short-run indicator. But are hopeless at making long-run predictions. In fact, net migration fell year-on-year by 6% in 2007, so if anything, the short-run trend is down.

daithifleming wrote: »

I can see some of your points, but you have to realise that is these if immigrants weren't here keeping wage levels down then we would be even more uncompetitive internationally. Wages in Ireland are simply too high and this is why fewer foreign companies (bloody foreigners) are locating here. You need to take your mind off the people at the top making a fortune and widen your scope a bit to see the reality of the situation. Yes, these immigrants will move elsewhere when the going is good, such as the influx of EE to Germany right now. I think you are being very presumptious to think that all EE's will happily sit on their arse and collect the dole instead of looking for work elsewhere. It is this kind of thinking that makes me shout 'bigot'.

I'm not for one minute saying that they'll all do a dole scrounger act...but many of these people have put down roots here, their kids are talking with semi-Irish accents, they consider this land a home from home, have their nice rented accomadation (who's rent is about to go up to pay for all those losses the landlord is making on his investment), or maybe a mortgage on a place if they were lucky enough to get here at the right time...but if/when times get harder, do you think they'll just upsticks and start again someplace else? Drag their kids out of schools and off to another land?
I say a lot of them weather the storm on the Irish social welfare scheme, not because they're lazy but because it makes financial sense and means they can stay here that bit longer; these people like this country...many have expressed their intention to stay. Many will think, "hey Ireland is a rich country and times will be good again in a few years" and will try to make ends meet as best they can on what the government gives them (rent allowance/mortgage relief, unemployment assistance, medical card)...my point to all that is that displaced Paddy and skanger-with-four-kids are going to need a slice of that pie too....there's no tax revenue flying in like it did in the construction boom years to fill up the coffers over at the DFSA, but there's still mortgages to pay, ever increasing energy bills to meet...all that good stuff.

As for the point on foreign investment, our wages have been spiralling for years and we've lost a lot of manafacturing jobs to cheaper nations...you forget that the only reason most of them came here to begin with all those years ago was low corporation tax and what was then a relatively cheap and educated labour force...when that dries up as it inevitably does, the labour force becomes costlier due to wage increases to allow for higher prices of housing, cost of living, influences from the overpaid public sector and in turn rising inflation, the companies go elsewhere. Given the way world economics is looking at the minute, even the places they're going to may not do as well as we did from them.
Foreign labour has only kept wage rates down in the sectors where the work is already low paid...and those low wages have undermined native workers, be it through increased property prices (see landlords renting to foreign wrokers above) or through a lower number of low tier jobs for natives to move in to when the big multinationals move on to greener pastures and their native supporting industries ahve no-one left to support.
Again, it's economic short term gain being traded away for long term headaches...that Johnny Irishman will be left paying for after the parties over...

Meh I'm fed up arguing the same points with the same people (not aimed specifically at you dathi) who'll say nothing I haven't heard before in defence of FF policies and EU migration policies in general and who at the end of it all will still hold the myopic views they held before I started typing.
I may have slanted views on this topic because I happen to work in the lower tiers, obviously I don't see all of the bigger picture (is there anyone that really can? certainly not the muppets we have in power), but I feel I can see enough to know that it's all downhill from here...

Thanks for the rhetoric Officercrocgod, but I'm not rising to half of that, you've taken half of the stuff you quoted me on out of it's context and twisted it to suit whatever agenda it is you're steaming into the thread with...

Where did I say it was "terrible" that these highly educated people are being let in? My whole point to making that argument is why aren't these highly skilled people coming and working in what they're best at, ie their qualified roles? It is indeed "terrible" that they are forced to take up low skilled work. I would in fact applaud them moving into the higher skilled/paid tiers, where they threaten the livelihoods of those that are currently calling anyone who opposes foreign labour as racist/bigots/whatever...it might even lead to a lowering of wages in those highly paid sectors...god knows we could all use some of that.
I disagree with your point that no Irish are willing to do this work...not in my social class, perhaps in yours...it's true though that they're not willing to work for the rates being paid, because for the most part those wages barely meet the cost of living.

There's a whole generation of unemployed out there who the government have no interest in doing anything other than keeping them in their estates and throwing the resultant mess in jail...instead of proper incentives to bring these scroungers into the work force, it's easier to simply dismiss them as lazy and open the doors to the rest if europe and fill those jobs with over qualified foreign labour because in the short term it's easy money.

Also I didn't post any of what you quoted me on in your last little paragraph...if that's what you took from it then fine, but I'd kindly ask that you remove my handle from that particular quote box as it is not what I posted.

[edit] Yeah keep on trollin'

Unaton wrote: »

"And naturally, nobody asked the Irish people what they thought of this little scheme."

This is a EU scheme. If you are living in Spain, you can vote there. If a Pole is living in Belgium, he can vote there. (in EU electtions) So now he just wants to apply this scheme to national elections. But to be honest I don't see why non-Irish would be interested in voting here.

No it's not you can only vote in European elections. I know cos my wife's an EU citizen.

Wertz wrote: »

IMO call centre workers aren't entitled to much more than minimum wage anyways...it's not that skills intensive (no offence to anyone working in CCs, just making the point)...but that's not what you're getting at, I know.
Your point being that these companies want to set up here (because they get the benefit of an english speaking workforce, low corporation tax and we're in the € zone) but only if wages are low, and as a country we need the investment and the workers need the wage. It's a buyer's market as regards labour.

But how do you reconcile those low wages with the rising costs in the rest of the economy? How can someone who maybe worked in a CC a few years back for a better wage, take a lower wage when the cost of servicing their mortgage/rent/cost of living is still increasing? The same can be applied to any worker... It's all well and good to say "Better yourself, get educated" but that's not always possible for whatever reason.
How do you re-skill someone who's been doing what they've been doing most of their adult life? By the time you get them up to speed on doing something else, the employers are unwilling to take them on because they can get someone younger to do it and probably pay them less.

I agree that wages have soared here in many sectors and that it's taking the piss in a lot of cases...but the problem is that these increased living costs aren't going away and show no sign of doing so...but yet everyone's expected to "get real" and work for less.

This has all veered a long way from voting rights for Polish. Nothing I've seen posted in this thread has made any good points for why this should be taken in as policy, at least not without a lot of tweaking...but of course like every other stupid decision taken by the incumbents it'll be taken in all the same and to hell with what the man on the street thinks...

You are asking me to provide a solution where everyone gets the best payoff, but you realise that this is impossible and quite often the 'least bad' solution is the only one to choose. This is essentially what economics is about and no matter what I say you will always have some example of the poor man on the street who gets the short end of the straw. So the choice in the current climate is CC with lower wages or no CC. If we are too picky, there are plenty of countries who are willing to take them onboard.

Voting rights for EU citizens I can swallow if it is the same right across the EU. I have no problem with that.

Tha Gopher wrote: »

Oh Im sorry. I forgot that the Jews did own the land after all.


Well, 2000 odd years previously. Until the Romans turfed them out, and the Jews migrated throughout Europe, the Mid East and Africa and intermarried to the extent that by 1948 they looked pretty much the same as the natives of the lands the ancient Jews had migrated to.

But of yeah, it was their land. The Palestinians were just squatting. Sorry.

Reckon most Dubs with a long history in the city have rights to land in the old Viking regions? Or those of us of more Celtic descent can migrate to the prmised land around Austria?



If it was practical for this call centre to be set up in EE, it would.

It isnt practical to.

I dont know why. The CEO of the company certainly knows why. So instead they will come to Ireland and employ foreigners to work very unsociable shifts. Often in Ireland it isnt the EE working call centres at bizarre hours, it is French, Germans and Italians. Possibly because, from my experience of call centres, alot of people (women mainly) from these countries simply do not care for a social life. They dont mind the fact they cant go out on a Friday and Saturday night. It is nuts, and I dont know how the ones Ive known have anything to live for, but it is true. That is why they are employed in them.

Again to finish, you just cant admit your entire logic is flawed. "0h n0ez, extreme examples!"

Cop on :rolleyes:

Yawn.