This is excellent on the numbers and scale of the issue, on the failings, it points to the scale of a real problem of integration and numbers which the country is uniquely poorly equipped to maintain, but disclaimer not withstanding, it's a little too soft on the racism, it absolutely exists and is a significant factor in the protests, it has exploded as commonly expressed and politicised sentiment in Ireland in a way that's not existed here previously, it accelerated notably during the lockdown period, and the increased proliferation of US-centric culture war content, it has gotten bolder, louder and more prominent. Racism as a category may not be useful, in that it is not something people readily internalise about themselves (individually or collectively), the British for the most part remain convinced their Empire civilised the world, the killers of Emmet Till denied they "had anything against anyone", Josepha Madigan has denied her leafleting about travellers was racist, Pádriag Nally was given a parade after being acquitted after shooting a traveller he had already seriously injured crawling away from his property in the back of the head, I do not think we should credit too much the self-concepts of bigots, I certainly don't think you can dismiss it as an underlying factor in the protests here, the Dublin riots were specifically over the fact it was not merely a reported stabbing of a child, but a stabbing of a child by a reported non-white immigrant (whereas MacGregor's convictions and subsequent attempt to corrupt the justice system yielded no notable protests at any of his properties in Dublin). When 80% of people voted to deny automatic citizenship to children born here in 2004, it was evident who it was the Irish people were voting to exclude from our nation; we disgraced ourselves.
Ireland is not the US or UK, we did not internalise notions of racial superiority as part of a national identity in order to justify slavery and colonialism respectively (rather we were at the butt end of something similar), but we have by dint of being part of the Anglosphere world taken on a good deal of it by osmosis, similarly we benefit in being deeply embedded in extractive post colonial trade systems and it is something we need to reckon with, not ignore or brush aside. This isn't quite what this piece is doing, but to dismiss it as a fundamental factor is giving far too much credit and not enough criticality to these protest movements. It has become a key vitalising factor and it is no surprise that the leaders of the fuel protests were found to have expressed such sentiments (which granted did not necessarily reflect the views of all of the protestors, nor would the protests have had such popular support had it been front and centre), these people are often the most motivated and most extreme, the first to take action, lead and shape as they exist in a state of perpetual agitation.
Our relationship to the other is always a manifestation of our relationship to ourselves, Ireland's profound inner disfunction, the century long post colonial hangover and latent inferiority complex, as such is projected onto the immigrant, especially the refugee, it is not as such a separate consideration, they are fundamentally intertwined.
However all that being said and noted it is all in all an excellent piece. Thank you.
Important article. My main takeaway from last few articles: public policy is increasingly using taxpayer money to subsidise outcomes that often worsen the problems they claim to solve.
It is usually framed as “good for the economy,” but that phrase has become too detached from people’s lived experience.
Economic growth on paper means little if it comes with higher living costs, poorer access to services, weaker infrastructure, and declining quality of life.
People can feel that things aren’t working, even if they don’t always know the policy mechanisms behind it.
A stronger economy should mean tangible improvements in people’s lives not just better GDP figures. Governments too often confuse GDP with the economy itself.
Need to also look at how the dynamics of decision making have changed. Senior public servants have far more power and exert more ownership over policy than elected politicians. By ownership I don’t mean accountability. There is a meta-shift underpinning all government policy adoption for the last 16 years that makes all policies seem like squares being hammered into round holes. Hope to see you in Dublin at some point to discuss.
Thank you for this article. I am all for pointing at the systematic failures of the government.
I also think we need to recognise the context of the types of immigration. The narrative around the Ukraine war due to its media exposure enables a population to accept the form of subsidies you dicussed without crying to much. Hence, we see FFG walk back into government during the cycle. The decisions don't happen in a vacuum and fit well with your previous posts. The government don't make long term policy decisions. They react to the mood.
In addition, the more worrying and developing situation is climate immigration. We are not prepared for the immediate and side effects of climate change. Immigration will sky rocket and the localized battle for resources will see massive displacement. The best time to act was yesterday but the second best time is today.
Fabulous essay, well done. 👏 I would only add that the real reason for this is that the political classes in Ireland have never escaped the colonial mindset.
That’s why we don’t have a functioning democracy- because the people in charge looked at the colonial model and decided the only thing that was wrong was that the accents were wrong.
Thus rural Ireland and working class Dublin have been treated with barely concealed contempt by the new elite.
This attitude needs to change, the whole musical chairs attitude to resources. The only politicians in country who are wise to this are the much derided Healey Rae dynasty who are unashamed about looking after their locality.
It feels we are now entering a system where irish children who have grandparents and family to visit will find it very hard to compete in the cao with children coming from hardship relentless in pursuit of high cao points. Without those high cao points, high paying jobs may become out of reach meaning that housing too becomes out of reach and those children fail to grow as adults. I couldn't fault anyone for working hard but what type of country will we become if it becomes hyper competitive with no time for community?
Thank you! Fantastic analysis that articulates the ireland situation eloquently. It seems so easy for some people to dismiss other people's legitimate concerns about what is happening in Ireland, with insults and condescending attitudes, without having any meaningful discussion with a view towards making positive and productive changes. The waste of public funds is so infuriating. Thank you again, I really appreciate reading your articles.
I think theres something bigger going on. If you consider how the world economy works, China and the rest of the East manufactures using minerals from Africa and Australia, energy from the Middle East, and sells to the West, which funds consumption with debt (Ireland is in enormous debt, as is America, and every other Western county). This has to increase every year as the financial system requires growth for loans to be paid back. For consumption to increase every quarter, bodies are needed. Pascal Donohue used to love saying "Consumption increased in the last quarter!". So we are mostly importing consumption. This explains the reluctance to remove people who have has their applications to stay rejected.
It also explains why AI and robotics can be used to replace declining populations in China, but cannot in the West - robots dont buy stuff.
The results of this system of ever increasing consumption are been seen in the UK with fly-tipping, and will be seen here too in time.
Zooming out even further, and viewing the global economy as a super-organism, it makes sense to move people from a low consumption country to high.
All of this is accelerating climate change and resource depletion. Ultimately, we have an unsustainable system which requires exponential growth on a finite planet.
One other thing to add in India is and will be one of the worst effected countries from climate change - which is the result of Western over-consumption. They deserve a more liveable place to inhabit. Long term, the worst affected will be Western Europe as the AMOC collapses - the very destination that requires more and more people.
So unless someone comes up with an economic system that doesnt require infinite growth, this disaster will be played out over decades and centuries.
You were doing well until the secondlast paragraph. Ordinary Europeans are not responsible for India's ridiculously overpopulated country and shocking poor hygiene standards, nor their continual adherence to the caste system. Indians don't 'deserve' to flood into Europe and Ireland en masse. It is our countries and general public who are now suffering the consequences of untrammeled mass Indian immigration into Ireland, Portugal, most of Europe and the West generally, which nobody ever voted for remember.
Excellent!Thank you👏. Given the current govt refuses to see or listen, hopefully we the people can start showing some kind of common sense and humanity. It will take us, time to remedy all this mess. There is no magic wand quick fix solution. It can start by taking back from them the 2 seats in the next by elections on 22May.( Galway and Dublin). DON'T VOTE for FF or FG. Don't give them even a scratch preference vote. Give them nothing.
They deserve nothing, moreso given their gross negligence and mismanagement. Not only do they lack common sense, they are bereft of any humanity, destroying dignity.
“Where ambiguity arises in this post (as it nearly certainly will when discussing something as complex as immigration), I would ask that the interpretation you lean to is the one where my meaning is of compassion and care.”
What’s important is outcomes and your piece lacks any discussion of it other than how much the Irish state spends on programs for migrants. It’s funny you mention the Netherlands as a success story; despite all of those programs (or because of them), irregular migrants are a heavy fiscal drain. Look around the world with clear eyes and it’s easy to see that integration policies are basically complete wastes of money or worse (they incentivize migrants who’ll only be net takers to migrate to your country) and what really matters is immigrant selection and their countries of origin
This is excellent on the numbers and scale of the issue, on the failings, it points to the scale of a real problem of integration and numbers which the country is uniquely poorly equipped to maintain, but disclaimer not withstanding, it's a little too soft on the racism, it absolutely exists and is a significant factor in the protests, it has exploded as commonly expressed and politicised sentiment in Ireland in a way that's not existed here previously, it accelerated notably during the lockdown period, and the increased proliferation of US-centric culture war content, it has gotten bolder, louder and more prominent. Racism as a category may not be useful, in that it is not something people readily internalise about themselves (individually or collectively), the British for the most part remain convinced their Empire civilised the world, the killers of Emmet Till denied they "had anything against anyone", Josepha Madigan has denied her leafleting about travellers was racist, Pádriag Nally was given a parade after being acquitted after shooting a traveller he had already seriously injured crawling away from his property in the back of the head, I do not think we should credit too much the self-concepts of bigots, I certainly don't think you can dismiss it as an underlying factor in the protests here, the Dublin riots were specifically over the fact it was not merely a reported stabbing of a child, but a stabbing of a child by a reported non-white immigrant (whereas MacGregor's convictions and subsequent attempt to corrupt the justice system yielded no notable protests at any of his properties in Dublin). When 80% of people voted to deny automatic citizenship to children born here in 2004, it was evident who it was the Irish people were voting to exclude from our nation; we disgraced ourselves.
Ireland is not the US or UK, we did not internalise notions of racial superiority as part of a national identity in order to justify slavery and colonialism respectively (rather we were at the butt end of something similar), but we have by dint of being part of the Anglosphere world taken on a good deal of it by osmosis, similarly we benefit in being deeply embedded in extractive post colonial trade systems and it is something we need to reckon with, not ignore or brush aside. This isn't quite what this piece is doing, but to dismiss it as a fundamental factor is giving far too much credit and not enough criticality to these protest movements. It has become a key vitalising factor and it is no surprise that the leaders of the fuel protests were found to have expressed such sentiments (which granted did not necessarily reflect the views of all of the protestors, nor would the protests have had such popular support had it been front and centre), these people are often the most motivated and most extreme, the first to take action, lead and shape as they exist in a state of perpetual agitation.
Our relationship to the other is always a manifestation of our relationship to ourselves, Ireland's profound inner disfunction, the century long post colonial hangover and latent inferiority complex, as such is projected onto the immigrant, especially the refugee, it is not as such a separate consideration, they are fundamentally intertwined.
However all that being said and noted it is all in all an excellent piece. Thank you.
Important article. My main takeaway from last few articles: public policy is increasingly using taxpayer money to subsidise outcomes that often worsen the problems they claim to solve.
It is usually framed as “good for the economy,” but that phrase has become too detached from people’s lived experience.
Economic growth on paper means little if it comes with higher living costs, poorer access to services, weaker infrastructure, and declining quality of life.
People can feel that things aren’t working, even if they don’t always know the policy mechanisms behind it.
A stronger economy should mean tangible improvements in people’s lives not just better GDP figures. Governments too often confuse GDP with the economy itself.
Need to also look at how the dynamics of decision making have changed. Senior public servants have far more power and exert more ownership over policy than elected politicians. By ownership I don’t mean accountability. There is a meta-shift underpinning all government policy adoption for the last 16 years that makes all policies seem like squares being hammered into round holes. Hope to see you in Dublin at some point to discuss.
Great piece. What’s left unsaid is that 72% of the population think the level of immigration is too high.
Thank you for this article. I am all for pointing at the systematic failures of the government.
I also think we need to recognise the context of the types of immigration. The narrative around the Ukraine war due to its media exposure enables a population to accept the form of subsidies you dicussed without crying to much. Hence, we see FFG walk back into government during the cycle. The decisions don't happen in a vacuum and fit well with your previous posts. The government don't make long term policy decisions. They react to the mood.
In addition, the more worrying and developing situation is climate immigration. We are not prepared for the immediate and side effects of climate change. Immigration will sky rocket and the localized battle for resources will see massive displacement. The best time to act was yesterday but the second best time is today.
Fabulous essay, well done. 👏 I would only add that the real reason for this is that the political classes in Ireland have never escaped the colonial mindset.
That’s why we don’t have a functioning democracy- because the people in charge looked at the colonial model and decided the only thing that was wrong was that the accents were wrong.
Thus rural Ireland and working class Dublin have been treated with barely concealed contempt by the new elite.
This attitude needs to change, the whole musical chairs attitude to resources. The only politicians in country who are wise to this are the much derided Healey Rae dynasty who are unashamed about looking after their locality.
Excellent objective piece of writing
It feels we are now entering a system where irish children who have grandparents and family to visit will find it very hard to compete in the cao with children coming from hardship relentless in pursuit of high cao points. Without those high cao points, high paying jobs may become out of reach meaning that housing too becomes out of reach and those children fail to grow as adults. I couldn't fault anyone for working hard but what type of country will we become if it becomes hyper competitive with no time for community?
Thank you! Fantastic analysis that articulates the ireland situation eloquently. It seems so easy for some people to dismiss other people's legitimate concerns about what is happening in Ireland, with insults and condescending attitudes, without having any meaningful discussion with a view towards making positive and productive changes. The waste of public funds is so infuriating. Thank you again, I really appreciate reading your articles.
I think theres something bigger going on. If you consider how the world economy works, China and the rest of the East manufactures using minerals from Africa and Australia, energy from the Middle East, and sells to the West, which funds consumption with debt (Ireland is in enormous debt, as is America, and every other Western county). This has to increase every year as the financial system requires growth for loans to be paid back. For consumption to increase every quarter, bodies are needed. Pascal Donohue used to love saying "Consumption increased in the last quarter!". So we are mostly importing consumption. This explains the reluctance to remove people who have has their applications to stay rejected.
It also explains why AI and robotics can be used to replace declining populations in China, but cannot in the West - robots dont buy stuff.
The results of this system of ever increasing consumption are been seen in the UK with fly-tipping, and will be seen here too in time.
Zooming out even further, and viewing the global economy as a super-organism, it makes sense to move people from a low consumption country to high.
All of this is accelerating climate change and resource depletion. Ultimately, we have an unsustainable system which requires exponential growth on a finite planet.
One other thing to add in India is and will be one of the worst effected countries from climate change - which is the result of Western over-consumption. They deserve a more liveable place to inhabit. Long term, the worst affected will be Western Europe as the AMOC collapses - the very destination that requires more and more people.
So unless someone comes up with an economic system that doesnt require infinite growth, this disaster will be played out over decades and centuries.
You were doing well until the secondlast paragraph. Ordinary Europeans are not responsible for India's ridiculously overpopulated country and shocking poor hygiene standards, nor their continual adherence to the caste system. Indians don't 'deserve' to flood into Europe and Ireland en masse. It is our countries and general public who are now suffering the consequences of untrammeled mass Indian immigration into Ireland, Portugal, most of Europe and the West generally, which nobody ever voted for remember.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Excellent!Thank you👏. Given the current govt refuses to see or listen, hopefully we the people can start showing some kind of common sense and humanity. It will take us, time to remedy all this mess. There is no magic wand quick fix solution. It can start by taking back from them the 2 seats in the next by elections on 22May.( Galway and Dublin). DON'T VOTE for FF or FG. Don't give them even a scratch preference vote. Give them nothing.
They deserve nothing, moreso given their gross negligence and mismanagement. Not only do they lack common sense, they are bereft of any humanity, destroying dignity.
RESIST-RESIST-RESIST
☘️⚖️📢💪👊☘️⚖️
“Where ambiguity arises in this post (as it nearly certainly will when discussing something as complex as immigration), I would ask that the interpretation you lean to is the one where my meaning is of compassion and care.”
I love this.
Essential reading
Brilliant article,
The question is how do we get out of this mess,
Is the like of Professor David Betz right about an incoming civil war?
What’s important is outcomes and your piece lacks any discussion of it other than how much the Irish state spends on programs for migrants. It’s funny you mention the Netherlands as a success story; despite all of those programs (or because of them), irregular migrants are a heavy fiscal drain. Look around the world with clear eyes and it’s easy to see that integration policies are basically complete wastes of money or worse (they incentivize migrants who’ll only be net takers to migrate to your country) and what really matters is immigrant selection and their countries of origin