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Replying To Freethinker:  "Again, Barney, just a few solutions or suggestions. This insidious narrative you are referring to is actually fact. The country is evolving. What are the alternatives that you have in mind ??"
You didn't respond to my earlier post.

Do you personally think there is a immigration problem in Ireland and in Europe?

Commodore (Donegal) - Posts: 1758 - 19/04/2026 12:05:59    2667175

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Replying To BarneyGrant:  "25% of population is born overseas. Do you think that none of them get sick, old, draw social welfare, get social housing, use buses, schools, and so on and so forth?

There is an insidious narrative here that Irish people are in some way beholden to people from outside of the country - immigrants, EU, tach corporations, housing investment funds and should just sit in the corner and be eternally grateful."
And of course those foreign people work and pay taxes, prsi etc .
Tech and multinationals employ 10s of thousands, of people,mainly due to us being in the EU (low tax of course helps).

Seanfan (Roscommon) - Posts: 491 - 19/04/2026 12:06:38    2667176

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Replying To Saynothing:  "Just over 17,000 homeless Irish people. Very few non Irish."
That is completely incorrect - https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/11/25/non-irish-nationals-over-represented-in-homeless-services-officials-warn/

Square_B (Leitrim) - Posts: 1981 - 19/04/2026 12:20:19    2667183

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Replying To Seanfan:  "And of course those foreign people work and pay taxes, prsi etc .
Tech and multinationals employ 10s of thousands, of people,mainly due to us being in the EU (low tax of course helps)."
You are talking about an industrial estate, not a nation. Ireland as a convenience.

All persons coming here do not work, many pay little tax as they are in low wage jobs, many are in the "informal" economy employed by other non Irish, a third of prison population is non national, more than half of those entitled to emergency accommodation in Dublin region are non Irish. They all use doctors, hospitals, buses, roads, houses....

One quarter of GDP is taken out of country by overseas corporations.

So the benefits at this stage in my opinion do not outweigh the costs. There needs to be strict limits otherwise there will be no such thing as a distinct Irish nation by end of century. That is what all the population and demographic studies are telling us.

If you think that is a good thing, then fine. Happy days. I do not and thankfully will not be here to see it.

BarneyGrant (Dublin) - Posts: 4207 - 19/04/2026 12:35:23    2667186

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Replying To Commodore:  "You didn't respond to my earlier post.

Do you personally think there is a immigration problem in Ireland and in Europe?"
I did, if you read it. Posted 2200 or so last night.

Freethinker (Wicklow) - Posts: 2233 - 19/04/2026 13:01:46    2667193

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Another question. Interesting to see how many answers it gets. Define "Native Irish". How many generations do the self appointed heritage guardians judge as qualifying. I see many far right individuals when named with names that don't exactly go back to Brian Boru. In 50 yrs time, if these migrants are still here they may have grandchildren or great grandchildren. Would they be regarded as being Irish heritage that point. Look around at some of our seaboard counties and their inhabitants. Some would seem to figg to in quite well in Mediterranean countries. Wexford and some surrounding counties have many many Norman surnames. At what point were all these cultures absorbed into our "natural Irish heritage". Before someone gets on here, my parents both have surnames that go back beyond said Brian, with Mac Murrough Kavanagh and Cork Murphy's thrown in amongst many others.

Freethinker (Wicklow) - Posts: 2233 - 19/04/2026 14:01:40    2667202

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Can't go to today's game due to illness so just watching the scores. Interesting game.
On another topic, Iran certainly seem to be "holding more cards than "POTUS" as he would call it. Practically begging them for a "deal".

Freethinker (Wicklow) - Posts: 2233 - 19/04/2026 16:22:13    2667229

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Replying To Freethinker:  "Another question. Interesting to see how many answers it gets. Define "Native Irish". How many generations do the self appointed heritage guardians judge as qualifying. I see many far right individuals when named with names that don't exactly go back to Brian Boru. In 50 yrs time, if these migrants are still here they may have grandchildren or great grandchildren. Would they be regarded as being Irish heritage that point. Look around at some of our seaboard counties and their inhabitants. Some would seem to figg to in quite well in Mediterranean countries. Wexford and some surrounding counties have many many Norman surnames. At what point were all these cultures absorbed into our "natural Irish heritage". Before someone gets on here, my parents both have surnames that go back beyond said Brian, with Mac Murrough Kavanagh and Cork Murphy's thrown in amongst many others."
"All these cultures." Outside of north east there were tiny numbers of settlers. Several thousand Normans who were assimiliated.

Gaelic families often took names of lords. Similar to African slaves in America. Hence the number of Fitz, Burkes etc.

Post Tudor Ulster planters never were assimilated, obviously. Yet people think a million Africans and Aisans will be!

BarneyGrant (Dublin) - Posts: 4207 - 19/04/2026 17:47:45    2667264

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Replying To BarneyGrant:  "You are talking about an industrial estate, not a nation. Ireland as a convenience.

All persons coming here do not work, many pay little tax as they are in low wage jobs, many are in the "informal" economy employed by other non Irish, a third of prison population is non national, more than half of those entitled to emergency accommodation in Dublin region are non Irish. They all use doctors, hospitals, buses, roads, houses....

One quarter of GDP is taken out of country by overseas corporations.

So the benefits at this stage in my opinion do not outweigh the costs. There needs to be strict limits otherwise there will be no such thing as a distinct Irish nation by end of century. That is what all the population and demographic studies are telling us.

If you think that is a good thing, then fine. Happy days. I do not and thankfully will not be here to see it."
"A third of the prison population is non national"


How can you write something like the above when it is blatantly untrue?
The figure is ~17%.


I can't be bothered to fact check the rest of your post. Then again, why should I when you clearly can't be bothered to either.

cavanman47 (Cavan) - Posts: 5319 - 19/04/2026 20:32:09    2667335

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Replying To Freethinker:  "That is a reasoned, well thought out synopsis of where we should stand. One problem is that, should every country in the developed world adopt that or a similar policy, that would not solve the problem of millions of people fleeing wars, created by tyrants, and despots all prioritising personal greed over ruling their countries for the betterment of their populations. Fleeing natural disasters brought on by global warming, which they had no hand in creating, Fleeing countries where religious maniacs have taken away basic human rights particularly from females - possibly a little like our own country in the thirties, forties , fifties and sixties when we flooded England with how many hundreds of thousands of immigrants, driven by our leaders vision of a closed, religious, Irish only state, though not quite as fundamental or radical as the Taliban or Pol
Pot. I am all for some kind of cap on immigration, particularly given the state of our housing situation, but I love would someone to come on here with thoughts on a solution to the above problem. Or do we all just do a Pontious Pilate on the thing, pull up the drawbridge and look the other way ??"
I am all for some kind of cap on immigration, particularly given the state of our housing situation,
Ok, well It's good to know you favour Controlled Immigration, that suggests you can at least see problems exist with the current excessive flow.


But I love would someone to come on here with thoughts on a solution to the above problem. Or do we all just do a Pontious Pilate on the thing, pull up the drawbridge and look the other way ??

My Suggestions

1. Propose a binding UN resolution for the key 5 or 6 nations initiating wars and/or supplying the weapons to those wars/tyrants to take full responsibility for the displaced people from those war torn Countries, as those 5 or 6 Countries to make billions every year from this carry on and are costing every other Country billions to mop up the aftermath.

2. If the UN path is veto'd or supported, proceed to launch a EU campaign to ban members from partaking in such wars or selling weapons to Nations that are responsible for huge volumes of EU immigrants, unless the is a 70% support for it.

3. Launch an UN / EU plan to invest billions in several key Cities in North Africa and the Middle East that would be developed and cultivated as UN / EU ran safe Cities for fleeing immigrants, which we can invest in over the next 20 - 40 years, providing work, education and health care support.

If we can't stop the problem at source, then UN and EU combined can provide sanctuary and protection for those looking to escape it. I'm not an expert, in truth the above suggestions would need specialist people working over time on these types of solutions. These are just some insight to how we should be looking to influence matters for the better of our fellow man.

Commodore (Donegal) - Posts: 1758 - 19/04/2026 21:08:01    2667345

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Replying To cavanman47:  ""A third of the prison population is non national"


How can you write something like the above when it is blatantly untrue?
The figure is ~17%.


I can't be bothered to fact check the rest of your post. Then again, why should I when you clearly can't be bothered to either."
Source?

You are arguing with big boy now.

BarneyGrant (Dublin) - Posts: 4207 - 19/04/2026 21:18:45    2667348

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Replying To BarneyGrant:  ""All these cultures." Outside of north east there were tiny numbers of settlers. Several thousand Normans who were assimiliated.

Gaelic families often took names of lords. Similar to African slaves in America. Hence the number of Fitz, Burkes etc.

Post Tudor Ulster planters never were assimilated, obviously. Yet people think a million Africans and Aisans will be!"
Assimilated? To what? You and I could not possibly be more different.

MiAmigaVERONICA (Clare) - Posts: 332 - 19/04/2026 21:21:00    2667350

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Replying To cavanman47:  ""A third of the prison population is non national"


How can you write something like the above when it is blatantly untrue?
The figure is ~17%.


I can't be bothered to fact check the rest of your post. Then again, why should I when you clearly can't be bothered to either."
I have never once been proven to post false and attributible stats.

You don't like the hard evidence of what the reality is but at same time you are all telling us how fantastic it is!

Thats is job for head doctor not statistician.

BarneyGrant (Dublin) - Posts: 4207 - 19/04/2026 21:24:36    2667354

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Replying To Freethinker:  "Another question. Interesting to see how many answers it gets. Define "Native Irish". How many generations do the self appointed heritage guardians judge as qualifying. I see many far right individuals when named with names that don't exactly go back to Brian Boru. In 50 yrs time, if these migrants are still here they may have grandchildren or great grandchildren. Would they be regarded as being Irish heritage that point. Look around at some of our seaboard counties and their inhabitants. Some would seem to figg to in quite well in Mediterranean countries. Wexford and some surrounding counties have many many Norman surnames. At what point were all these cultures absorbed into our "natural Irish heritage". Before someone gets on here, my parents both have surnames that go back beyond said Brian, with Mac Murrough Kavanagh and Cork Murphy's thrown in amongst many others."
For me personally, I consider anyone who is born here to be Irish. I don't care where their parents came from, I don't care what colour their skin is or what faith they are, if they are born here, they are in my opinion Irish. The might say Jamaican Irish or Nigerian Irish or Chinese Irish, in the same way in the US people claim to be Irish American.

The Native bit is complicated, because unlike North America, which had distinct tribes for thousands of years before European settlers arrived, Ireland is different. Geneology in recent years have DNA sampling data shows that we are the culmination of various migrations over the last 10,000 years, similar to the rest of Europe.

However the DNA also shows that each wave integrated with the previous waves of Immigrants, as a result, thousands of people in every corner of Ireland still have elements of the DNA of those who built Neolithic stuctures such as Newgrange or older structures such a CarrowKeel/Carrowmore in Sligo or Belthany Stone Circle in Donegal. Its important to note that these migrations were all gradual, and that allowed for peaceful assimilation. Even the Vikings and Normans integrated.

One example of where that assimilation didn't happen, was the Ulster Plantation, and 400 years later we are still dealing with the repercussions of that mess.

Commodore (Donegal) - Posts: 1758 - 19/04/2026 21:36:47    2667364

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