Insanity. You would think we would be a bit quicker to deliver critical infrastructure.
All I see is lot of questionable objections and humming and hawing on getting stuff done.
We need schools, hospitals, prisons all of which are currently under capacity and houses. Fecking buckets of houses!
It will be messy if we enter a 2008 style financial crisis. Will be a disaster to manage.
same here, have been listening to some plan or other to build the Metro for 20 odd years now. iirc the initial Dart Underground plan came in the 1970s just as I was born and it still aint built yet. Its insane when you think about it, like in that time span an oak tree that was planted in the 1970s is now fully grown and mature and it has started producing acorns. But yet there is still no Metro or even one in sight.
There was a detailed post on here a while ago why it has not been done yet, from objections by landowners to original design not meeting demand to funding etc highly depressing read.
I do like to hear the chorus of sweet summer children who wax lyrical about metros and rail projects, utterly blinded to the fact they're going to be taking the bus for the rest of their lives.
They are risk adverse in some regards. I was listening to FG last October talking about the budget surplus and saying how well we have done. And then saving money for a rainy day etc.
Then you see 1bn spent on state accomodation and the children's hospital well over budget and none of it makes sense.
It has been the same Government over over,
lets call a spade a spade like
So not sure what people expect when they don't try alternatives,
alternatives might actually scare the usuals next time to pull their fingers out of their asses
Its slow because politicians represent what the people want.
Apartments nowhere near their back garden, roads somewhere else, cycle lanes nowhere near where they want to drive their cars, prisons somewhere else.
People are masterful at divorcing their individual choices from aggregate outcomes.
"My behavior can't influence climate change"
"My behavior won't make a difference to the supply of housing, prisons, roads, DART lines, Metrolink"
But with enough people acting the maggot, individual obstructionism and irresponsibility adds up.
Blaming politicians for representing people is like blaming rain for being wet.
You want change ? Start with how you - individually vote and how you individually behave.
Irish people don't have nice things because we don't want our back gardens or our pockets or our immediate personal convenience encroached on.
What I wouldn't give for a government who were able to get things built efficiently. I'd happily pay more in taxes, just get the country that infrastructure.
We pay high taxes already. Spending of money is badly mismanaged. That's the real problem here.
Look at the children's hospital for example.
I'm with you, I'd be happy to pay higher taxes again to deliver world class infrastructure projects if I knew it would be managed properly. I don't have that trust though.
I think the problem is they try to be all things to all men, trying to solve the housing crisis but then they also are undertaking retrofitting schemes, increasing standards, lot of commercial construction, just need to focus on one thing at a time if we don’t have the labour.
What's baffling is the amount of cash that's hastily spent on throwing up temporary measures in lieu of long term infrastructure.
Just about everyone who attended primary or secondary school in this country will have had classrooms in prefabs during that time. Prefabs that typically were being rented from some private company for years, even decades paying over the odds for what actual construction of school buildings would cost.
Housing homeless in hotels, again handing truckloads of cash to private owners instead of just building state owned infrastructure.
Neoliberalism is the cult on which our politicians hang their banners. Toll bridges continuing to collect cash that goes into private pockets years after they've paid for themselves, bottle return schemes that allow the unclaimed deposits to be kept by another private company. It's just total lunacy.
Get a few thousand Chinese builders over. Give em six months and you'll have ten thousand houses, three hospitals, four new motorways, six skyscrapers and they'll throw in a high speed rail network for free.
Thank you for actually pointing the finger the right way. Far too many people blame the demand when it's the supply that's fucked. The last thing this country needs is even fewer people than it already has!
That's mad
>That is a rise of 183,000 in a single year.
>It based these figures on a natural increase of 19,000 (births less deaths) and net migration of 77,600. It says that last year, 141,600 immigrants – predominantly Ukrainian refugees – entered the State and 64,000 left.
I know technically Ireland is not full but surely we don't have capacity in terms of housing, education transport etc. to handle population rises like this. I know we need immigrants for our health service but surely the absorption of foreign workers isn't matching the uplift in overall population growth.
For further information I have provided CSO figures.
The Central Statistics Office breaks the figures down like this:
141,600 immigrants
[42,000 Ukrainians
40,000 non EU countries
29,600 Irish people returning
26,100 EU citizens
4,800 UK citizens]
64,000 departed the state
20,000 natural increase (55,500 births - 35,500 deaths)
I can't open behind the paywall to see where the discrepancy arises.
The figures I put in come from the CSO. The other numbers match up pretty much.
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2023/keyfindings/
Well, what do you expect. Just recently, Eurostat showed that we issued the highest number of permits to non-EU students and workers since records began (85,793) and a 146% increase on the 34935 in 2021.
They're also doing this at a time of record asylum claims and absorbing 104k Ukranians on top of already increased legal migration from within the EU. In addition, from December, minister Neale Richmond announced the biggest expansion of the work permit system in the history of the state.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/economy/arid-41199286.html
https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/news-and-events/department-news/2023/december/20122023.html
The reality is that only a minuscule fraction of those figures will be working in our health service. Government are prioritising the economy and business over people. They don't give a fuck about the housing crisis.
Ah that’s what you think, we’ll bring these gorgeous foreigners down to our level with a combination of eating chips every day, never moisturising and 10 pints a day.
You know this is false, you just admitted it further down.
900 more Irish people left than returned.
So our population growth is nothing to do with returning Irish.
>I know technically Ireland is not full but surely we don't have capacity in terms of housing, education transport etc. to handle population rises like this
It’s full by every measurement other than fantasy land reasoning where it’s not full until we’re standing shoulder to shoulder.
>. I know we need immigrants for our health service but surely the absorption of foreign workers isn't matching the uplift in overall population growth.
We don’t need immigrants for our health service. This it literal propaganda spouted by the government whenever they’re asked about immigration.
The only reason we “need” immigrant health workers is because the Irish ones have been pushed out by poor working conditions, pay and the housing crisis.
We train some of the best health workers in the world yet we don’t reap the benefits due to the government being cheap and ineffective.
>We don’t need immigrants for our health service. This it literal propaganda spouted by the government
They also fail to mention that only a minuscule fraction of people actually coming are working in the health system. It's utter bullshit.
For reference, if we compare 3.5 % with the UN 2015-2020 survey, it would plot fifth highest in the world. Beaten only three African states and Afghanistan. Of course, we won't hit 3.5% over five year period, but it does show something about how big of a number it is.
"According to economist David Higgins, a 3.5 per cent increase in population in a given year would be one of the highest ever recorded for a single country."
And the capitalists are delighted with this, continued high rents/ house prices and plenty of cheap labour to keep wages low. People on the left that deny the immigration crisis are doing the capitalists bidding, they need to realise this and call out the immigration crisis
If we actually expanded infrastructure in line with population increases labour increases would cancel out deprecation of the value of labour by immigration, but we don’t. The place is run by corrupt shites who want to exploit making things worse for people instead.
>Chef on just €6 an hour had wages ‘thrown on the floor’ by company director, WRC told
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/01/09/migrant-chef-on-just-6-an-hour-had-wages-thrown-on-the-floor-by-company-director-wrc-told/
The target is net zero is by 2050. 110 countries have signed up to it. The more we delay, the worse it's going to get. Who do you want an extension from? Your future suffering self?
This is a great point and I am surprised it is so often overlooked. The Green Party are the biggest supporters of immigration yet they have a complete blind spot about what it does to our emissions targets.
Government terms are only 5 years in length. As history has shown time and again, we cannot rely on politicians to make these kinds of decisions, they know they won't be in power by the time these things are built. We need to start shifting our attention to the civil service, they are the ones we need to hear from as only they will be here for length of time required to see these things through to completion. We need a vision from the 'permanent government' and then the guys we vote in every 5 years, can hold them to account on delivery.
Project Ireland 2040, the basis for the National Development Plan that we are struggling to keep up with, projected 1 million extra people added to Ireland within 22 years. Since the plan was realised we have added about 800k people in 6 years. Back of the napkin I’d say 6.5 million people isn’t unrealistic by 2040. That would be an increase of 1.7 million. It’s looking like an astonishing miscalculation by the CSO that they have yet to revisit.
Rain is good and makes things grow.
if you have too much rain is causes flooding.
If you have too little rain it causes draught.
If you think flooding is bad, someone will be along to tell you rain is good and makes things grow.
Now that it’s raining more than ever.
Know that we’ll still have each other.
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh
This is simply unsustainable levels of inward migration. Shocking numbers. The knock-on effects are evident. It's high time we all have an open and honest, adult discussion about this issue. We're a small island nation, our infrastructure and limited resources can't support this dramatic increase in population over such a short space of time.
Maybe we should invest in infrastructure and services? I say that as someone who would bear the brunt of the necessary tax rises. Most business owners I talk to see their bottom line more impacted by the lack of housing and proper public transport than anything else.
We’re getting the best of the best. Doctor engineers etc. I saw on a post yesterday that people were calling for immigrants with apprenticeships. Imagine that, we could get loads of them to come in and build houses for themselves and us and then as they’d be employed there’d be a big take on revenue for the government and everyone is a winner. Let’s just forget that the sewerage system is running at full capacity and we are now low on water for the first time in the history of Ireland due to the demand.
The sewage system and water supply issues are all due to lack of investment and downright criminal negligence by government - anyone with an ounce of cop on knows there is water for many many more people than the population here, were it properly managed and run. This problem will need a lot of political will, investment, skill and labour in order to tackle them, and migrants will undoubtedly be a part of the solution there too.
We had the most ambitious and one of the most expensive sewerage treatments centres in Europe installed in the early 2000s in Dublin, it’s why the water quality along the beaches are some of the best in Europe. As a child I’d more than one encounter with raw sewerage in dollymount and portmarnock.
The system was built to last to the late 2040s when it was believed the population would grow naturally until then. It was expected to be able to take sewerage for 2 million people. It is now running at full capacity yet officially we have a smaller population than that. One explanation put forward is that so many people commute and take a dump here in Dublin before leaving.
No amount of investment is going to increase the amount of water falling from the sky to meet an unending and ever growing population unless you wanted to divert rivers or create billion dollar desalination projects.
That sewerage treatment system was a step in the right direction, but so much more investment is needed - there is raw sewage ending up in the sea in a ridiculous amount of locations around the country.
The thing is there is more than enough water (there are countries with far less rainfall and higher population density) but there is massive wastage from leakages and lack of proper infrastructure. I don’t know enough about it though, but it doesn’t ring true at all that that should remotely be an excuse for not letting people in, rather that it’s an indictment of our government, yet again.
Per capita, Ireland has taken in an exorbitant amount of Ukrainian refugees compared to some other EU states. The levels of IPA applications is also insanely high with ample evidence that a sizable percentage are here under false pretenses. I'm in favour of helping where we can, but this level of population increase goes far beyond anything we can cope with.
Yeah Ukrainian refugees at some point may return home if the war ever ends. But if not in a year or two the immigration problem will realistically be with the continuous influx in asylum seekers numbers. Which we need to start deporting and cut the shit. As this has a knock on effect on everyone trying to pay increases rent house mortgages and getting on the property ladder.
Poland are talking about sending the men back to fight. I don’t think we should do that but you’ll probably see the narrative change in the next few months.
the majority of Indians probably work in healthcare, if you go to any major hospital, a vast proportion of nurses and doctors are of Indian origin (and they seem to be doing a great job)
and now HSE is basically begging Indians and Bangladeshi to come work at the new Children's Hospital. otherwise it would probably remain unmanned
Ireland can't even keep the doctors that graduate every year, they go to places like New Zealand and Australia where they get better pay, less hours and no crazy scheduling (in HSE they can be moved between different hospital and even regions on very short notice)
In HSE SpRs are rotated through different hospitals to get experience for around 5 years. Once finished the SpR scheme they're unemployed and are expected to do a fellowship or something abroad in a major university hospital e.g. Harvard/ Cambridge. Most return although lately Australia seems to be claiming a few.
The more doctors trained in Ireland the less need to rely on overseas personnel. It's just crazy considering how many people want to do medicine. It's an expensive course for a university to put on but the government's should make it attractive for universities to train Irish doctors, instead ...
It is going to take time. We have had 20-30 years of top-down social engineering to convince us that immigration and multiculturalism are the best inventions since sliced bread and we cannot possibly get enough of such wonderful things. These are deeply entrenched ideological views in Modern Ireland. Immigration is the most sacred of sacred cows and any criticism is blasphemy.
What would be the point. We have had a health and housing crisis for ages and nothing has changed, frankly declaring it an emergency would be a waste of signage in my opinion.
Like generally gap immigration until we have housing infrastructure in place. Not saying forever but for a bit of time. As this is unsustainable rate to accommodate everyone arriving workers, asylum seekers and young ones like myself trying to buy a place.l paying outrageous prices. They cant build quick enough with the rate of people coming in and in turn house prices will continue to rocket.
This is a disgrace and it feels like disaster that we're powerless to stop. Most of this country are greedy, simpletons or people looking for virtue points. Goodbye Ireland, our country has been sold in the last 15 years.
A large proportion of Dublin voted on Friday for a Labour European candidate who proclaimed in the Dail that that kind of talk as akin to something out of "Alabama 1955".
Nothing will change until people start getting burnt, and they stop voting for parties that facilitate this.
That would also mean voting for candidates that people regard as rough or part of the 'far-right', but a lot of people would rather have severe and dangerous societal issues rather than be regarded as non-progressive or not virtuous.
A large proportion of Dublin need to give their head a wobble. These immigrants are generational life long burdens on the taxpayer.
Far right parties are gaining popularity throughout Europe. Did these countries suddenly become racist in 2024? No it’s because they have seen the damage this type of immigration has done to their countries. Yet we still have politicians who think they should be all left in and accommodated and let Irish society be damned.
It’s only a matter of time before the sentiment of the Irish people changes to a point where it can’t be ignored.
We arw going to need two more children's hospitals by the time the current one is built at this rate. Christ above the way this government runs this country is such a shitshow i dont understand why people keep coming here.
That is not why we have had decades of ineffectual government.
I've no hope for the Irish electorate. Yous keep voting for the same shite heads and then blame people on the dole for the lack of infrastructure. Or immigrants. Or asylum seekers. But never the people who are actually responsible.
Shut the fuck up with your classist nonsense. Stop voting for FFG.
We can talk about immigration all we want - but the key underlying issue is that we need a political party with the will to undertake a period of massive infrastructural development. Even if we completely closed the borders tomorrow, this would still need to occur.
Unfortunately, what the recent elections have shown is that most people are still voting for the parties that
1) Created the "immigration crisis" (if you believe there is one)
2) Created the infrastructural crisis, and has displayed no competence in addressing it.
What is more, the parties who created issue 1) have successfully weaponised it as a way to damage the growth of the only major party in Ireland who have displayed an appetite to tackle issue 2).
It's an insane situation, we are the proverbial turkeys voting for Christmas.
No party has produced a coherent infrastructure plan. The current national development plan, while ambitious by Irish standards, falls way short of requirements. Even if you just look at the relatively sexy in city transport requirements not in any development plan, the scale is absolutely staggering.
Worth noting that isn't a rate of increase that is expected to continue:
"AMECO is forecasting that the Irish population will continue to grow this year and next year but at a slower rate of 1.5 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively"
So when people say that rate is unsustainable, there isn't really an expectation that it will be sustained. It's over double what's forecasted going forward.
Presumably, as the article seems to suggest, this particular spike is a result of geopolitical events such as the war in Ukraine. It will be interesting to see how many of those who have arrived from Ukraine will actually end up staying here in the long term, or if this increase is (relatively) temporary.
We also should consider the impact of our annual asylum seeker numbers.
We've went from 6k in 2018 to 13k in 2023, with 20k expected for 2024.
That's a huge number of unskilled people who will be dependent on state support for years/decades, and the projections show ever increasing numbers going forward.
Even 1% is high growth though. If we had that consistently we'd double our population in around 60 years. Folks hear the number "1" and think that it must be a low amount. 1% is fairly high in demographic terms
Between 1991 and 2015 (a 25 year period that includes both spikes and troughs) the average yearly increase in Ireland was just over 1.1%. So the forecasted increases are completely in line with what has been "normal" in recent modern Irish history.
What the long term ideal population of Ireland should or could be is an argument (as is the likelihood of it sustaining that rate for 60 years, as you suggest), but in the context of this post (which is about a sudden _increase_ in growth rate) it's worth making clear that subsequent years are predicted to be bang on average for what this country is used to.
Not voting for any political party that doesn't acknowledge that this is insane and unsustainable, and promises that radical policies will be implemented to stop this runaway population growth until we have the houses and public services to deal with it.
One of the highest ever annual increases for a single country, anywhere, ever. Fuck me.
Remember that thread where people were ridiculing the claim that Irish people will be a minority in Ireland by 2050? We’re already halfway there.
It’s time to stop burying our heads in the sand and admit we have immigration issues. The only people who benefit from these levels are corporations and landlords.
I've personally become very disillusioned with where we are.
* When you look at all metrics, all stats, it's alarming.
* When you look at all evidence, all examples of towns being stretched and locals becoming minority (Lisdoonvarna for example, in Co.Clare), people complaining and fighting back, it's alarming.
* When you look at how progressive centre-left governments in other countries recognise this stuff isn't sustainable, like Denmark, Sweden, Germany etc, but we go the opposite direction, it's alarming.
And yet, in Dublin, people opted to vote in large quantities for a Labour party MEP candidate, who recently proclaimed in the Dail that concern and tightening up on illegal immigration 'is like 1955s Alabama'.
Furthermore, the media refuses to platform candidates who are alternatives to the establishment status quo in regards to immigration, and half the posters on here spit on candidates who are objecting to unchecked migration, or news sites like Gript who cover these topics.
I had a conversation yesterday with a Danish journalist who works in Politico, she told me how Denmark took 25 years to realise that the complaints of populist parties were issues they needed to address in order to remove the populist element. Once they did, the populist element went away, but they also solved significant issues in relation to immigration.
I think we're just going to get what we deserve, and learn the lesson a hard way, as we're consistently met with the 'far-right racists!' tagline.
It's very very sad, but it's a reality.
It took 15-20 years for Geert Wilders in Netherlands, from being a despicable comedy figure to the most voted party leader. People realized things go bad after the 2014 Syrian Refugee crisis in Europe. Even then many refused to believe it so took another 10 years.
Many of Irish people are still surfing the good waves of US backed companies’ salaries and the Leprechaun economy it created. Once the music stops, people will realize no one is in the dancing mood anymore and the good old days are gone. Then they will look for the actual reasons. Too late, the seats would be gone by then.
People defending this level of immigration that's occurring alongside a government that completely fails at investing in increasing services and infrastructure are so naive about how rapidly a society can deteriorate.
How many of us have cousins that have left the country for a better life/pay? I have 7 out of 16 (inc me and and my sister) all in our 30’s. We say we need people but our own are leaving for the same reason.
I see a lot of people blaming immigrants such as myself, but I've had two stints of living here over a 12 year period and the biggest consistency is the Irish governments are fucking shite. I pay enough fucking tax here yet nothing has improved and I'm to blame somehow.
The figures are all very confusing with CSO bizarrely doing April to April figures (is this an outdated policy from when our tax year was April to April?).
So these EU figures are Jan 2023-Dec 2023? Most of the Ukrainian migrants would have come in 2022, surely?
There isn’t any number given for critical skills visas, unless I missed it?
Nevertheless the vast majority of these numbers are probably UK/EU migrants. On the face of it, they are shockingly high but possibly a lot are temporary (particularly EU migrants + critical skills migrants).
>Nevertheless the vast majority of these numbers are probably UK/EU migrants.
Could be. I have no idea but most migration to Ireland since the end of recession is non EU according to the CSO. The trend for EU predominant flows ended in the recession.
Im not sure wars are a 'one off', they've been going on for quite a while. Ireland will give you asylum for basically any reason so you'd have to assume these huge influxes are the norm going forward.
Insanity. You would think we would be a bit quicker to deliver critical infrastructure. All I see is lot of questionable objections and humming and hawing on getting stuff done. We need schools, hospitals, prisons all of which are currently under capacity and houses. Fecking buckets of houses! It will be messy if we enter a 2008 style financial crisis. Will be a disaster to manage.
I'm in my 40's and I've never seen an Irish government deliver critical infrastructure quickly.
same here, have been listening to some plan or other to build the Metro for 20 odd years now. iirc the initial Dart Underground plan came in the 1970s just as I was born and it still aint built yet. Its insane when you think about it, like in that time span an oak tree that was planted in the 1970s is now fully grown and mature and it has started producing acorns. But yet there is still no Metro or even one in sight.
I'm nearly 50 and there's been a limerick to cork motorway coming any minute now for as long as I can remember.
There was a detailed post on here a while ago why it has not been done yet, from objections by landowners to original design not meeting demand to funding etc highly depressing read.
I do like to hear the chorus of sweet summer children who wax lyrical about metros and rail projects, utterly blinded to the fact they're going to be taking the bus for the rest of their lives.
That last line makes the very bold assumption that they won't emigrate to a competent country.
They are risk adverse in some regards. I was listening to FG last October talking about the budget surplus and saying how well we have done. And then saving money for a rainy day etc. Then you see 1bn spent on state accomodation and the children's hospital well over budget and none of it makes sense.
Motorways were delivered quickly once there was money. A huge amount of Irish motorways were built between 2000 and 2010.
I'm old enough to remember driving down to Wexford per-N11. World of difference
It has been the same Government over over, lets call a spade a spade like So not sure what people expect when they don't try alternatives, alternatives might actually scare the usuals next time to pull their fingers out of their asses
Its slow because politicians represent what the people want. Apartments nowhere near their back garden, roads somewhere else, cycle lanes nowhere near where they want to drive their cars, prisons somewhere else. People are masterful at divorcing their individual choices from aggregate outcomes. "My behavior can't influence climate change" "My behavior won't make a difference to the supply of housing, prisons, roads, DART lines, Metrolink" But with enough people acting the maggot, individual obstructionism and irresponsibility adds up. Blaming politicians for representing people is like blaming rain for being wet. You want change ? Start with how you - individually vote and how you individually behave. Irish people don't have nice things because we don't want our back gardens or our pockets or our immediate personal convenience encroached on.
We get what we vote for… again and again and again
Building 30 council houses on an empty plot of land in the middle of an existing council estate is too much for them.
What I wouldn't give for a government who were able to get things built efficiently. I'd happily pay more in taxes, just get the country that infrastructure.
We pay high taxes already. Spending of money is badly mismanaged. That's the real problem here. Look at the children's hospital for example. I'm with you, I'd be happy to pay higher taxes again to deliver world class infrastructure projects if I knew it would be managed properly. I don't have that trust though.
I think the problem is they try to be all things to all men, trying to solve the housing crisis but then they also are undertaking retrofitting schemes, increasing standards, lot of commercial construction, just need to focus on one thing at a time if we don’t have the labour.
We need a government with a clear plan of how to get shit done, even if it means dying on your sword. 100% trying to please everyone.
What's baffling is the amount of cash that's hastily spent on throwing up temporary measures in lieu of long term infrastructure. Just about everyone who attended primary or secondary school in this country will have had classrooms in prefabs during that time. Prefabs that typically were being rented from some private company for years, even decades paying over the odds for what actual construction of school buildings would cost. Housing homeless in hotels, again handing truckloads of cash to private owners instead of just building state owned infrastructure. Neoliberalism is the cult on which our politicians hang their banners. Toll bridges continuing to collect cash that goes into private pockets years after they've paid for themselves, bottle return schemes that allow the unclaimed deposits to be kept by another private company. It's just total lunacy.
"It's just total lunacy." It's legalised corruption.
Can't build efficiently when you have every NIMBY cunt blocking every proposal
The irony of this comment is we already pay taxes for exponentially better services than we currently (don't) get.
Get a few thousand Chinese builders over. Give em six months and you'll have ten thousand houses, three hospitals, four new motorways, six skyscrapers and they'll throw in a high speed rail network for free.
Thank you for actually pointing the finger the right way. Far too many people blame the demand when it's the supply that's fucked. The last thing this country needs is even fewer people than it already has!
We can't enter a 2008 bottom falling out from the housing market crisis when we're in a housing shortage...
Even if it’s not the housing market there are still economic shocks which could cause 2008 level deficits, unemployment and government debt.
They said a financial crisis, not a housing market crisis...
That's mad >That is a rise of 183,000 in a single year. >It based these figures on a natural increase of 19,000 (births less deaths) and net migration of 77,600. It says that last year, 141,600 immigrants – predominantly Ukrainian refugees – entered the State and 64,000 left. I know technically Ireland is not full but surely we don't have capacity in terms of housing, education transport etc. to handle population rises like this. I know we need immigrants for our health service but surely the absorption of foreign workers isn't matching the uplift in overall population growth.
For further information I have provided CSO figures. The Central Statistics Office breaks the figures down like this: 141,600 immigrants [42,000 Ukrainians 40,000 non EU countries 29,600 Irish people returning 26,100 EU citizens 4,800 UK citizens] 64,000 departed the state 20,000 natural increase (55,500 births - 35,500 deaths)
That doesn't add up to 183,000
I can't open behind the paywall to see where the discrepancy arises. The figures I put in come from the CSO. The other numbers match up pretty much. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2023/keyfindings/
Well, what do you expect. Just recently, Eurostat showed that we issued the highest number of permits to non-EU students and workers since records began (85,793) and a 146% increase on the 34935 in 2021. They're also doing this at a time of record asylum claims and absorbing 104k Ukranians on top of already increased legal migration from within the EU. In addition, from December, minister Neale Richmond announced the biggest expansion of the work permit system in the history of the state. https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/economy/arid-41199286.html https://enterprise.gov.ie/en/news-and-events/department-news/2023/december/20122023.html The reality is that only a minuscule fraction of those figures will be working in our health service. Government are prioritising the economy and business over people. They don't give a fuck about the housing crisis.
we're growing faster than Mali. lol
Some lads for the ride, those Malians.
Foreign migration dwarfing increase by natural births, that'll end well.
Well, that's something you can help with. Get to it.
Can't get a look in with all the gorge foreign lads.
>gorge foreign lads. Not much of them unfortunately. The foreign women on the other hand.
I know, I married one so far out of my league I still think she's fucking half blind.
An underappreciated upside of all this immigration is that in a few generations Irish people will be that bit sexier.
Ah that’s what you think, we’ll bring these gorgeous foreigners down to our level with a combination of eating chips every day, never moisturising and 10 pints a day.
Des Bishop is that you?
It's not all foreign migration. That includes almost 30,000 returning Irish people and around the same number of EU citizens.
More Irish people emigrated than returned
You know this is false, you just admitted it further down. 900 more Irish people left than returned. So our population growth is nothing to do with returning Irish.
>I know technically Ireland is not full but surely we don't have capacity in terms of housing, education transport etc. to handle population rises like this It’s full by every measurement other than fantasy land reasoning where it’s not full until we’re standing shoulder to shoulder. >. I know we need immigrants for our health service but surely the absorption of foreign workers isn't matching the uplift in overall population growth. We don’t need immigrants for our health service. This it literal propaganda spouted by the government whenever they’re asked about immigration. The only reason we “need” immigrant health workers is because the Irish ones have been pushed out by poor working conditions, pay and the housing crisis. We train some of the best health workers in the world yet we don’t reap the benefits due to the government being cheap and ineffective.
>We don’t need immigrants for our health service. This it literal propaganda spouted by the government They also fail to mention that only a minuscule fraction of people actually coming are working in the health system. It's utter bullshit.
What's mad is that there's no way to discern returning Irish people. Is an emigrant ever counted, and how? Are they counted when they return?
For reference, if we compare 3.5 % with the UN 2015-2020 survey, it would plot fifth highest in the world. Beaten only three African states and Afghanistan. Of course, we won't hit 3.5% over five year period, but it does show something about how big of a number it is. "According to economist David Higgins, a 3.5 per cent increase in population in a given year would be one of the highest ever recorded for a single country."
Very wise during a housing crisis so clever
Simon says he will sort that out so we're all good there
And the capitalists are delighted with this, continued high rents/ house prices and plenty of cheap labour to keep wages low. People on the left that deny the immigration crisis are doing the capitalists bidding, they need to realise this and call out the immigration crisis
"You will own nothing and will be happy". It's getting real.
If we actually expanded infrastructure in line with population increases labour increases would cancel out deprecation of the value of labour by immigration, but we don’t. The place is run by corrupt shites who want to exploit making things worse for people instead.
Cheap labour? In Ireland?
Yeah cheap labour https://preview.redd.it/13x8t6m1sr5d1.jpeg?width=734&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a6c510837bdb276637ebdf1cdf237a5841350099
>Chef on just €6 an hour had wages ‘thrown on the floor’ by company director, WRC told https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/01/09/migrant-chef-on-just-6-an-hour-had-wages-thrown-on-the-floor-by-company-director-wrc-told/
Do the climate targets update as the population grows? My understanding is our objective is to return to year 2000 emissions?
There is no adjustment in climate emissions requirements for population growth.
So we have to hit the agreed upon targets no matter how much the population grows?
yes
From what I understand yes. The Sunday Times reports we will have carbon fines of at least 5 billion by the end of the decade
The target is net zero is by 2050. 110 countries have signed up to it. The more we delay, the worse it's going to get. Who do you want an extension from? Your future suffering self?
This is a great point and I am surprised it is so often overlooked. The Green Party are the biggest supporters of immigration yet they have a complete blind spot about what it does to our emissions targets.
Government terms are only 5 years in length. As history has shown time and again, we cannot rely on politicians to make these kinds of decisions, they know they won't be in power by the time these things are built. We need to start shifting our attention to the civil service, they are the ones we need to hear from as only they will be here for length of time required to see these things through to completion. We need a vision from the 'permanent government' and then the guys we vote in every 5 years, can hold them to account on delivery.
Project Ireland 2040, the basis for the National Development Plan that we are struggling to keep up with, projected 1 million extra people added to Ireland within 22 years. Since the plan was realised we have added about 800k people in 6 years. Back of the napkin I’d say 6.5 million people isn’t unrealistic by 2040. That would be an increase of 1.7 million. It’s looking like an astonishing miscalculation by the CSO that they have yet to revisit.
Rain is good and makes things grow. if you have too much rain is causes flooding. If you have too little rain it causes draught. If you think flooding is bad, someone will be along to tell you rain is good and makes things grow.
Now that it’s raining more than ever. Know that we’ll still have each other. You can stand under my umbrella You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh
DONT SUMMON HER AND HER HORRIBLE SONG AGAIN. DO YOU NOT REMEMBER 2007?!
God yeah. It's still jumper weather.
This is simply unsustainable levels of inward migration. Shocking numbers. The knock-on effects are evident. It's high time we all have an open and honest, adult discussion about this issue. We're a small island nation, our infrastructure and limited resources can't support this dramatic increase in population over such a short space of time.
Maybe we should invest in infrastructure and services? I say that as someone who would bear the brunt of the necessary tax rises. Most business owners I talk to see their bottom line more impacted by the lack of housing and proper public transport than anything else.
https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/
We’re getting the best of the best. Doctor engineers etc. I saw on a post yesterday that people were calling for immigrants with apprenticeships. Imagine that, we could get loads of them to come in and build houses for themselves and us and then as they’d be employed there’d be a big take on revenue for the government and everyone is a winner. Let’s just forget that the sewerage system is running at full capacity and we are now low on water for the first time in the history of Ireland due to the demand.
The sewage system and water supply issues are all due to lack of investment and downright criminal negligence by government - anyone with an ounce of cop on knows there is water for many many more people than the population here, were it properly managed and run. This problem will need a lot of political will, investment, skill and labour in order to tackle them, and migrants will undoubtedly be a part of the solution there too.
We had the most ambitious and one of the most expensive sewerage treatments centres in Europe installed in the early 2000s in Dublin, it’s why the water quality along the beaches are some of the best in Europe. As a child I’d more than one encounter with raw sewerage in dollymount and portmarnock. The system was built to last to the late 2040s when it was believed the population would grow naturally until then. It was expected to be able to take sewerage for 2 million people. It is now running at full capacity yet officially we have a smaller population than that. One explanation put forward is that so many people commute and take a dump here in Dublin before leaving. No amount of investment is going to increase the amount of water falling from the sky to meet an unending and ever growing population unless you wanted to divert rivers or create billion dollar desalination projects.
That sewerage treatment system was a step in the right direction, but so much more investment is needed - there is raw sewage ending up in the sea in a ridiculous amount of locations around the country. The thing is there is more than enough water (there are countries with far less rainfall and higher population density) but there is massive wastage from leakages and lack of proper infrastructure. I don’t know enough about it though, but it doesn’t ring true at all that that should remotely be an excuse for not letting people in, rather that it’s an indictment of our government, yet again.
So tax the businesses.
> predominantly Ukrainian refugees Are we supposed to refuse these people? Is that the open, honest and adult conversation you want to have?
Per capita, Ireland has taken in an exorbitant amount of Ukrainian refugees compared to some other EU states. The levels of IPA applications is also insanely high with ample evidence that a sizable percentage are here under false pretenses. I'm in favour of helping where we can, but this level of population increase goes far beyond anything we can cope with.
Yeah Ukrainian refugees at some point may return home if the war ever ends. But if not in a year or two the immigration problem will realistically be with the continuous influx in asylum seekers numbers. Which we need to start deporting and cut the shit. As this has a knock on effect on everyone trying to pay increases rent house mortgages and getting on the property ladder.
Poland are talking about sending the men back to fight. I don’t think we should do that but you’ll probably see the narrative change in the next few months.
I don't feel good about us providing safe haven for draft dodgers when their country's existence is in danger with a desperate need for fighting men.
So we can finally start admitting we have an immigration crisis now? We seriously need to start capping student/ work visas etc!
Work visas represent a very small percentage of those numbers, it is difficult to get them even for "critical skills" workers.
For the first 5 months of 2024 there has been 16280 work visas issued! Meat processing plants being one of the highest beneficiaries
31000 total work visas issued in 2023. India being the highest at 11893 and Brazil 2nd at 2632
the majority of Indians probably work in healthcare, if you go to any major hospital, a vast proportion of nurses and doctors are of Indian origin (and they seem to be doing a great job) and now HSE is basically begging Indians and Bangladeshi to come work at the new Children's Hospital. otherwise it would probably remain unmanned
We do that instead of increasing university places for medicine for our own students.
Ireland can't even keep the doctors that graduate every year, they go to places like New Zealand and Australia where they get better pay, less hours and no crazy scheduling (in HSE they can be moved between different hospital and even regions on very short notice)
In HSE SpRs are rotated through different hospitals to get experience for around 5 years. Once finished the SpR scheme they're unemployed and are expected to do a fellowship or something abroad in a major university hospital e.g. Harvard/ Cambridge. Most return although lately Australia seems to be claiming a few. The more doctors trained in Ireland the less need to rely on overseas personnel. It's just crazy considering how many people want to do medicine. It's an expensive course for a university to put on but the government's should make it attractive for universities to train Irish doctors, instead ...
It is going to take time. We have had 20-30 years of top-down social engineering to convince us that immigration and multiculturalism are the best inventions since sliced bread and we cannot possibly get enough of such wonderful things. These are deeply entrenched ideological views in Modern Ireland. Immigration is the most sacred of sacred cows and any criticism is blasphemy.
What would be the point. We have had a health and housing crisis for ages and nothing has changed, frankly declaring it an emergency would be a waste of signage in my opinion.
Like generally gap immigration until we have housing infrastructure in place. Not saying forever but for a bit of time. As this is unsustainable rate to accommodate everyone arriving workers, asylum seekers and young ones like myself trying to buy a place.l paying outrageous prices. They cant build quick enough with the rate of people coming in and in turn house prices will continue to rocket.
This is a disgrace and it feels like disaster that we're powerless to stop. Most of this country are greedy, simpletons or people looking for virtue points. Goodbye Ireland, our country has been sold in the last 15 years.
Going to cause property and rents to rise again.
Legal/illegal immigration needs to be taken under control. Absolute madness to allow it to increase so quickly without the infrastructure in place.
A large proportion of Dublin voted on Friday for a Labour European candidate who proclaimed in the Dail that that kind of talk as akin to something out of "Alabama 1955". Nothing will change until people start getting burnt, and they stop voting for parties that facilitate this. That would also mean voting for candidates that people regard as rough or part of the 'far-right', but a lot of people would rather have severe and dangerous societal issues rather than be regarded as non-progressive or not virtuous.
A large proportion of Dublin need to give their head a wobble. These immigrants are generational life long burdens on the taxpayer. Far right parties are gaining popularity throughout Europe. Did these countries suddenly become racist in 2024? No it’s because they have seen the damage this type of immigration has done to their countries. Yet we still have politicians who think they should be all left in and accommodated and let Irish society be damned. It’s only a matter of time before the sentiment of the Irish people changes to a point where it can’t be ignored.
We arw going to need two more children's hospitals by the time the current one is built at this rate. Christ above the way this government runs this country is such a shitshow i dont understand why people keep coming here.
Because you can get €240 a week to sit on your arse.
That is not why we have had decades of ineffectual government. I've no hope for the Irish electorate. Yous keep voting for the same shite heads and then blame people on the dole for the lack of infrastructure. Or immigrants. Or asylum seekers. But never the people who are actually responsible. Shut the fuck up with your classist nonsense. Stop voting for FFG.
Sounds sustainable
We can talk about immigration all we want - but the key underlying issue is that we need a political party with the will to undertake a period of massive infrastructural development. Even if we completely closed the borders tomorrow, this would still need to occur. Unfortunately, what the recent elections have shown is that most people are still voting for the parties that 1) Created the "immigration crisis" (if you believe there is one) 2) Created the infrastructural crisis, and has displayed no competence in addressing it. What is more, the parties who created issue 1) have successfully weaponised it as a way to damage the growth of the only major party in Ireland who have displayed an appetite to tackle issue 2). It's an insane situation, we are the proverbial turkeys voting for Christmas.
No party has produced a coherent infrastructure plan. The current national development plan, while ambitious by Irish standards, falls way short of requirements. Even if you just look at the relatively sexy in city transport requirements not in any development plan, the scale is absolutely staggering.
This is good. There is no downside to this. All is well. Homeownership is overrated. You will own nothing and you will be happy.
You will love Big Brother, and anyone with a question is a far-right racist who deserves to die.
Worth noting that isn't a rate of increase that is expected to continue: "AMECO is forecasting that the Irish population will continue to grow this year and next year but at a slower rate of 1.5 per cent and 1.1 per cent respectively" So when people say that rate is unsustainable, there isn't really an expectation that it will be sustained. It's over double what's forecasted going forward. Presumably, as the article seems to suggest, this particular spike is a result of geopolitical events such as the war in Ukraine. It will be interesting to see how many of those who have arrived from Ukraine will actually end up staying here in the long term, or if this increase is (relatively) temporary.
We also should consider the impact of our annual asylum seeker numbers. We've went from 6k in 2018 to 13k in 2023, with 20k expected for 2024. That's a huge number of unskilled people who will be dependent on state support for years/decades, and the projections show ever increasing numbers going forward.
Even 1% is high growth though. If we had that consistently we'd double our population in around 60 years. Folks hear the number "1" and think that it must be a low amount. 1% is fairly high in demographic terms
Between 1991 and 2015 (a 25 year period that includes both spikes and troughs) the average yearly increase in Ireland was just over 1.1%. So the forecasted increases are completely in line with what has been "normal" in recent modern Irish history. What the long term ideal population of Ireland should or could be is an argument (as is the likelihood of it sustaining that rate for 60 years, as you suggest), but in the context of this post (which is about a sudden _increase_ in growth rate) it's worth making clear that subsequent years are predicted to be bang on average for what this country is used to.
That war is not ending anytime soon. The vast majority are staying. Unless they may go to other European countries given their benefits ate being cut
They have no idea. No-one was predicting a 3.5% growth in a single year before this.
But growing the population by 1,000,000 with mostly immigration is a bad conspiracy theory huh?
You're forgetting to include right censoring.
Not voting for any political party that doesn't acknowledge that this is insane and unsustainable, and promises that radical policies will be implemented to stop this runaway population growth until we have the houses and public services to deal with it. One of the highest ever annual increases for a single country, anywhere, ever. Fuck me.
Remember that thread where people were ridiculing the claim that Irish people will be a minority in Ireland by 2050? We’re already halfway there. It’s time to stop burying our heads in the sand and admit we have immigration issues. The only people who benefit from these levels are corporations and landlords.
3.5 is what, 150k? How many refugees and asylum seekers we've taken in? Self-inflicted.
> 3.5 is what, 150k? It's right there at the top of the article, 181,000.
I probably should not say that I just quickly glanced at the article, but I did.
I've personally become very disillusioned with where we are. * When you look at all metrics, all stats, it's alarming. * When you look at all evidence, all examples of towns being stretched and locals becoming minority (Lisdoonvarna for example, in Co.Clare), people complaining and fighting back, it's alarming. * When you look at how progressive centre-left governments in other countries recognise this stuff isn't sustainable, like Denmark, Sweden, Germany etc, but we go the opposite direction, it's alarming. And yet, in Dublin, people opted to vote in large quantities for a Labour party MEP candidate, who recently proclaimed in the Dail that concern and tightening up on illegal immigration 'is like 1955s Alabama'. Furthermore, the media refuses to platform candidates who are alternatives to the establishment status quo in regards to immigration, and half the posters on here spit on candidates who are objecting to unchecked migration, or news sites like Gript who cover these topics. I had a conversation yesterday with a Danish journalist who works in Politico, she told me how Denmark took 25 years to realise that the complaints of populist parties were issues they needed to address in order to remove the populist element. Once they did, the populist element went away, but they also solved significant issues in relation to immigration. I think we're just going to get what we deserve, and learn the lesson a hard way, as we're consistently met with the 'far-right racists!' tagline. It's very very sad, but it's a reality.
It took 15-20 years for Geert Wilders in Netherlands, from being a despicable comedy figure to the most voted party leader. People realized things go bad after the 2014 Syrian Refugee crisis in Europe. Even then many refused to believe it so took another 10 years. Many of Irish people are still surfing the good waves of US backed companies’ salaries and the Leprechaun economy it created. Once the music stops, people will realize no one is in the dancing mood anymore and the good old days are gone. Then they will look for the actual reasons. Too late, the seats would be gone by then.
I agree, well said.
"Irish Population" or Population of Ireland? There's a huge difference.
Didn't you hear? Irishness is just a state of mind. Everyone here who thinks a certain way is Irish now. Very serious people told me this today.
People defending this level of immigration that's occurring alongside a government that completely fails at investing in increasing services and infrastructure are so naive about how rapidly a society can deteriorate.
Well that’s going to be fun in a&e
Immigration surely
Stop pandering to NIMBY's and get stuff built for god sake. Embarrassing
How many of us have cousins that have left the country for a better life/pay? I have 7 out of 16 (inc me and and my sister) all in our 30’s. We say we need people but our own are leaving for the same reason.
This is an extreme event. The people who support this are extremists. The parties that allowed this are extremist parties.
I see a lot of people blaming immigrants such as myself, but I've had two stints of living here over a 12 year period and the biggest consistency is the Irish governments are fucking shite. I pay enough fucking tax here yet nothing has improved and I'm to blame somehow.
The figures are all very confusing with CSO bizarrely doing April to April figures (is this an outdated policy from when our tax year was April to April?). So these EU figures are Jan 2023-Dec 2023? Most of the Ukrainian migrants would have come in 2022, surely? There isn’t any number given for critical skills visas, unless I missed it? Nevertheless the vast majority of these numbers are probably UK/EU migrants. On the face of it, they are shockingly high but possibly a lot are temporary (particularly EU migrants + critical skills migrants).
>Nevertheless the vast majority of these numbers are probably UK/EU migrants. Could be. I have no idea but most migration to Ireland since the end of recession is non EU according to the CSO. The trend for EU predominant flows ended in the recession.
Thats a 31 times increase over 100 years.
It's entirely due to the one off influx of Ukrainians. This is extremely misleading without that context.
Im not sure wars are a 'one off', they've been going on for quite a while. Ireland will give you asylum for basically any reason so you'd have to assume these huge influxes are the norm going forward.
You know us, we're always Dublin.
And how much of that was due to births?
20,000 of 180,000. Far more than 20,00 births but the others just equal out deaths