A bit of a rant but.. I love Ireland and I love Waterford, I could name 100 positives to living in Ireland and Waterford but the increased racism and anti-immigrant stuff all over social media and in posters being put up around the town makes me genuinely upset. I’m a very empathetic person and I feel it’s just not fair for people who have come from other countries to be discriminated against because of assumptions that they ‘want benefits’ and all they do is assault women and children. There is bad people in every group of people, we see this from the amount of white Irish people judge Nolan alone let’s away. Sometimes I feel like a child when I say this but it’s just so unfair. And the same for trans people and people who identify as other genders. Like who gives a fuck where you’re from or what you do or what you identify as? And then there’s the argument that ‘I don’t care what ya do if you work and contribute’. Whether someone works or not is not an excuse to be racist either.
If everyone minded their own this country would be a better place.
And just for context, I am Irish (born and rared), cis, and straight, worked my whole life, went to college, have a good job. I’m not apart of any marginalised group and I still have the common sense to see at the end of the day we’re all just people.
I'd say stay off social media to be honest. Get out into your community and you will find it's quiet normal.
Social media is fucking cancerous.
We should stop acting like online stuff is part of some other realm though, it evidently bleeds into real life.
So much of our public infrastructure is being privatised through digitisation. It should be treated as part of our communities, rather than a top down corporate motivated social experiment
Constantly notice it bleeding into my real life, I'm losing friends because they feel lectured when I call out the racism.
I love this comment. Social media is a part of our lives and our world. I’m so fucking tired of people telling people to avoid social media or delete their account or touch grass if they point out some toxic online behavior. It’s this kind of “man up” or “you’re SO sensitive” response to a legitimate point someone makes.
But also the fact that gobshites get more notice doesn't mean that the thing they are reacting to doesn't need to be addressed.
People being against water charges was a perfectly legitimate position, even if there were some thugs among anti-water-charge political agitation. The same thing is true about immigration reform.
Good luck nationalizing Twitter
I take your point but unfortunately the casual racism is very much factor of real life in Ireland. There’s an awful lot of people who agree with the baseline point of the morons online - that other ethnicities are dangerous and less deserving of a good life. Nothing infuriated me more than when the seemingly more moderates claim not to be racist but when you boil down their “concern”, it comes back to that they believe people of other ethnicities are inherently more likely to commit crime than Irish people, which is ya know, the literal definition of racism.
How about look up the trends in places such as Sweden and Germany where migrants cause a significantly larger percent of crime than natives. ☺️
So if was to emigrate to Germany tomorrow, I would be more likely to commit a crime than a German because I’m a migrant? Based on your other comments, you don’t think about any of this stuff very deeply and seem to believe anything you read on Facebook or somewhere. Please do better.
I don’t think he was referring to Irish migrants.
Most people aren't racist at all just annoyed the government give the ukies and other refugees housing and loads of benefits and normal people get shafted
I promise I’m not chronically online; I used to work in a very busy shop in town and people always (always!!!) made racist comments to me as a shop keeper about people behind/ in front of them in the queue.. always giving out about the staff who had foreign accents and the Ukrainians who needed an extra minute to explain what they needed.. always turned into a horrible comment about foreigners a lot more than you think.. but you’re right I reckon if I didn’t focus on the media as much then I wouldn’t be as frustrated at the situation. Self reflection time
And it's up to you to out racist idiots in their place.
I live in a house share with 4 other people. One girl is from Glasgow but her Mam is from Ethiopia.
One other girl is from Sligo and she has extreme views about religion, immigration, conspiracy theoroee and politics.
She tried to get the rest of us on board with her extreme views with an eye on bullying the Scottish girl.
She was firmly told that no one shared her extreme view's and if she persisted to voice her views,.then she could leave.
Nip that ignorance in the bud.
"Extreme view's" 😅
This. A good portion of the social media accounts spouting devisive drivel are bots with the sole purpose of destabilising/antagonizing the target nations.
Yes they are. I don't think enough people realise this. They are AI generated or bot farm generated by bad actors looking the Stoke up hate. It isn't real
I heard someone make what I thought was a sensible point, I've since forgotten who said it.
It was along the lines of, "Humans should have freedom of speech but bots shouldn't".
We desperately need to figure out how to enforce social media platforms to keep bots away. They can already do this very easily I'm sure but it's against their business interestes. In my opinion, it's almost solely responsible for all the hatred and divisiveness in the world in the last decade or so. Here's hoping we can figure it out soon!
Some people will suggest IDs should be required to be submitted to use social media but that makes use of these sites in oppressive countries impossible.
The hate they stoke is real and the country behind it ?
Russia.
Bots don't just exist out of nowhere, it requires time, energy and money.
Our social order is under attack by a hostile state that no more regards or treats Ireland as neutral than it does the United States.
Despite our protestations Russia, China, Iran and North Korea regard Ireland as they would Canada, New Zealand, Australia -> English speaking US allies and want to destabilize us as much as they can.
Call it what it is, information warfare.
Sadly it's not. The National Party has managed to persuade people in my local area to support them, behind messages of banning all muslims from entering Ireland.
The local elections will tell a lot.
It's worrying tho , all the social media stuff is a look into the future mindset of the people in this country
But it's up to sound minded people to stop it...
honestly, this is not entirelly true.
I am not native Irish, but I arrived in Ireland 20 years ago, and my spoken English is good enough for people not immediatelly notice I am not Irish.
I am experiencing more and more that people will stop talking to me when I mention I am not originally Irish. Its subtle, small hints. But it is happening.
But hasn't this always been the case? I spent a year living in Ireland and met plenty of really nice people, but I also had the mirrors of my car smashed off twice, because 'teenagers do that to foreign cars and there's nothing we can do' (said the Garda). A close friend of mine was beat up for being French while simply walking home and minding his own business. A friend of mine who has mixed ethnicity came to visit and was so uncomfortable because people kept staring at her with truly unfriendly expressions.
I absolutely love Ireland and just spent another lovely holiday there, but xenophobia has been an issue for a long time.
That is the same attitude British people had in the early 2000s. I know I was there.
Give it a few more years and they will ask for a EU ref.
Step by step it is exactly the same plan that succeeded in the UK being implemented here as well, by the same people.
How do you combat it?
It seems like the government are sleep walking into their hands...
They are already talking about leaving the EU.
not really, about 10 minutes down the road you can see a massive display of racist signs where a bunch of refugees are staying
I see way less of this online then in real life though?
As long as there isn't a bloody portal. So fucking embarrassing as a nation. Loads of people in New York think we are a bunch of racist hobos now.
But the racists won't get off social media and they organise around the feedback loop of social media. If you're at all anti racist you should stay on social media and help counter it.
They did research and found that Ireland is full comments are mostly coming from America. Only 20% arr coming from Ireland.
Yes, I saw the stats on that, not only the US but the UK aswell.
I'm not sure the majority of people are aware of this.
They are getting riled up and getting involved in discussions on line that are 100% generated by foreign accounts.
Limit your Internet exposure and question every thing you read on these platforms.
Get out into your community and get a real life view of what is going on.
You see… in the past each village had their village idiot… the village idiot is usually shouting obscenities or spreading conspiracies. That was all ok before social media. One had a giggle and told them to go home. Now your local village idiot can contact all the other village idiots world wide. And they can come up with shite together. Now all those village idiots confirm each others believes and opinions and getting just annoying.
That’s a fun metaphor but not the case. There are real issues people are worried about but still there is no room for racism we can agree on that. The governments actions and omissions have caused a lot of this and if we can’t agree on that you’re either thick or a liar.
You are right. There are real issues. And government is sometimes a really shite job to explain what they are doing and why… On the other hand some of the problems are completely invented and made up. Someone tells you over and over: “‘THEY’ want to take your …(insert something important here)” over and over again and after a while It sticks.
Here in this particular situation I am interested in:
under what condition is an international protection applicant allowed to stay?
what happens until a decision is made in regards to accommodation?
what happens when the person is not permitted to stay?
are there any limits or quotas?
I guess whoever is the recipient of those questions is, the answers will be extreme in both directions.
Agree with a lot of what you say, but.. "why do we care if people work". Cmon ffs
I agreed with OP up until that point. Everyone who can work, should be working and contributing to a better society
Including the many Irish lazy men and women who simply choose not to work or contribute to society in any way. Let's not exclude this sizeable cohert
Absolutely. When I say everyone, I mean everyone. No matter their colour, race, whether they lost a toe or they just don’t want to work. If they’re physically able to work, they should be. Personally, I think we should do away with unlimited Dole. There should be a timeframe on how long you can be on it and decrease month by month after you’ve passed that time. Maybe this will also make people have more responsibility and accountability for themselves.
Many rightfully so don't really view work as a benefit to society, especially in these days of wealth disparity greater than nearly any other point in history.
Even if people don't want to work, they should still be looked after and able to live happy, full lives.
There are no houses left in this country. There are two rentals in my town. Sometimes there are zero. Racism isn't OK, but preventing immigrants coming in is NOT racism. Learn to separate the two.
This is the problem with the left Irish and politicians, keep flowing migrants into the country while the people think it's nice and diversifying while the politicians and big companies have people coming in to work crappy jobs for minimum wage all while destroying the chance at fixing our housing problems and creating issues like "tent city".
Our labour workers go to Australia and the migrants take their place, what good is Ireland if the Irish can't afford to live there in the near future?
Of course, I'll get downvoted and called a racist but sorry for being a bit realistic.
Well, actually, you'll get down voted and called a racist because you're being unrealistic.
See, you almost had it, by pointing out that big companies and politicians were causing a race to the bottom. But then you shifted to migrants taking jobs because people are leaving.
See, the Irish Left (actual Left, not liberals), like the Left of most countries have actually been warning this is what is going to happen with the rise of Neoliberalism. Labour pool goes global, pay becomes weaker, people displaced. Now, the easiest way to slow this down is to organise migrant workers together with Irish people, force better pay, develop mutal aid networks, things that people the world over did and achived for years. Take France for example. Or Spain. Or even small communities across Ireland during the worse momentsn of the last 50 years. Things that are actually achievable. That have been proven to be achievable.
But, then you went and blamed migrants because you think being forced into a life or death stuggle for basic quality of life is normal. Or, you're too cowardly or lazy to punch up, so you kick down. Which is why people will call you racist. And a coward.
At what point did I "blame" migrants? I blamed politicians. There's no doubt in my mind that we have great migrant workers in Ireland that contribute, hell one of them is my girlfriend.
I don't think being forced into a shit life with struggle is fair, that's exactly why I oppose our governments push to allow so many immigrants in only to have them living in tents on the streets.
My stance is on making a strong local community and bringing back the workers to build houses, not to keep bringing in migrants for cheap labour and push out the Irish, the problem with that is it's so commonly accepted by left and liberals because "diversity" is good, which... It is but.. everything has limits
There’s almost 32000 homes sitting empty in Ireland. Ireland isn’t full. Our government is just disgustingly incompetent.
There are over 160000 buildings, including houses, flats and other residential property that can be turned into housing. That argument have never held water.
And obviously whatever this government is doing isn't working is it? And allowing willy nilly migration doesn't help at all either. No, they aren't the cause of the crisis, but we need to tone it down.
"And obviously whatever this government is doing isn't working is it?" - it's not supposed to, that's the thing!
So you see that the government has 2 options, tone down immigration or review housing policy and vulture funds etc. And even though that second option would benefit you too, you'd rather they tone down immigration?
Why is it an "or"? They aren't mutually exclusive. Do both.
It's no good having 160000 building there unless they are turned already turned into housing or at least in the process. I have 500 in the bank that can be turned into 1,000,000. Easy say it, not easy do it. And as the previous poster said adding huge amounts of immigrants to the situation isn't going to help matters. There is nothing racist about that.
Yes we are having similar issues in Australia. We have lack of housing and infrastructure. Our government has let in large amounts of immigrants.
We have a lot of those from India and Asia coming here on loose student visas and they using it as a way to come here and work in jobs like Uber or fast food. In my mind, I don’t think we need to have migrants come here to work at McDonald’s. Let our young and less skilled Australians have these jobs.
With the Irish coming to Australia, they are skilled migrants coming to fill shortages eg nursing, construction and mining. We appreciate their input too.
I hear you loud and clear. There will always be those who need social housing and protection. Always. I wish people had more compassion and kindness, social media in particular is awful for spreading hatred.
There will always be chancers as well, which the majority of IPAs fall into. The majority of applications get rejected as not being refugees, but we pay 20,000 annually for every single applicant.
When Russia invaded Ukraine we stepped up to the plate. It wasn't easy but we did it. Now the explosion of asylum applications we are currently witnessing are not from any particular crisis - they aren't even from countries experiencing war: Algeria, Georgia, Nigeria, Albania were the highest contributors of asylum seekers in March. The number of people applying from Georgia in March alone, 3500 people, was as many applicants as we could expect from the entire world for the entire year of 2017.
No point in speaking sense in here.
Very curious how it could possibly cost €20,000 for each applicant. That's taking the piss and something that should be addressed
“Why do we care if people work?”
who’s going to pay for everyone if we didn’t care about who works? Were you alive during the last recession?
Racism is never okay, people are misinterpreting what's happening re immigration and blaming immigrants for it. That's where I believe the racism stems from, insecurity.
The crisis is 100% the government's fault, they made no plan to stem the mass influx of immigrants, had no system to verify immigrants identities etc.
They also did nothing about immigrants destroying documentation on planes to pretend they're seeking asylum, plus providing benefits better than other countries allowing people to 'asylum shop', which kinda defeats the purpose.
It's not migrants fault the Irish government is making it so easy/lucrative for both illegal immigrants asylum shoppers to come here. As a result we can't even confirm who truly needs asylum and who's only here for the benefits. Instead they blame the Irish public for their own incompetence.
Yes... How dare we dislike the Indian pretending to be Ukrainian coming here because he was told it's the coziest country for refugees...
Exactly, like hello are we really the ones causing the issues here?
One one hand people are misinterpreting the root cause (the government) and genuinely become racist, on the other hand you're accused of being far right for simply asking the government to step up.
It's a ridiculous situation, especially when we give better benefits to refugees than we do our own people in need. I'm unemployed, seeking work at the moment. Where's my free bed and board. Without the sole (which doesn't cover a lot, AT ALL when you've rent/bills/loans and food to buy.
It's so ridiculous that illegal immigrants (I'm specifically talking about 'Ilegal' immigrants before someone tries to come for me), mess with our system, receive better benefits than us, plus done have to do anything in return, at the costs of our hard given taxes.
Ridiculous!
You do know that anyone whose claim is rejected automatically gets classified as "fake asylum seeker" even if its on a technicality? They've been given tragets to keep under.
Also, you know they're biometrical scanned? So if the destroy their passports, it means nothing. They can get the details. They've been able to do it. I know, it sounds like something out of cheap conspiracy novel but governments and interpol have been doing it for years.
Perhaps because they are being treated as second class citizens in their own country.
Ireland and its people are renowned for their openness and hospitality, and many feel that they are being taken advantage of.
Far too often the label “racist” is being used to stifle debate and prevent legitimate concerns being ignored.
It's possible to be against this endless mass migration without being racist or hateful. You must b3 only listening to the worst people on the topic. I also safely assume anyone okay with the mass migration has a stable place to live.
I totally agree with you. We need sensible migration policies that are enforced. Not the free for all we currently have.
Agreed. This OP isn't living in reality. Probably some spoiled kid.
There are two rentals in my town and the prices are unreal. At least there are two, right? Sometimes there are zero.
Can’t work / won’t work… two very different scenarios… it IS my business when I’m paying over €2k a month on taxes for someone who just doesn’t want to contribute to society…
Blame super geniuses Roderick O Gorman and Helen McEntee
Not wanting your culture to be completely erased isn't racist.
Nazi scum off our streets !! Haha
If all you have is hate for people with less than you you have nothing at all that's worth a damn.
Wow what a deep, pensive quote.
That will surely solve the housing crisis! Get this guy a platform and a microphone!
Wow almost brings water to my eyes.
The other commenters have raised that people have legitimate issues with housing and housing with immigration.
There is a new current of hate taking advantage of these crises that is new however, and it's been rearing it's head since the start of COVID. We've never had agitators able to spread violent and racist messages as effectively as those that incited the recent riot ("any foreigner, just kill them").
The National Party and Irish Freedom Party have organised Irish hate in a way we haven't seen before.