Except for the fact that a high percent of the immigrants in Ireland are not from the EU.

@ John F: Bit of a racist are we?

Petty Response Arch, Please address where in my comment I mentioned race? Are you suggesting that all of us in the EU are of one race and those from outside the EU are of a different race? Or maybe you’re suggesting that been an EU citizen is racially exclusive? Think before you post silly comments!

@Arch – That is a bit overly sensitive. I don’t know John F, maybe he is a racist or maybe not. What he said however isn’t racist at all. At some point all nations need to deal with immigration. I feel in some respects it is a good thing and I wouldn’t like to see anybody I know who isn’t an EU citizen booted out of the country. Immigration is good for creating growth in large businesses and improving Ireland’s welcoming and inclusive image abroad.

However I think that there needs to be some better kinds of control put in place as to who gets is allowed in. I know there is nothing that can be done with EU citizens who are entitled to live here, but the unskilled immigrant from outside the EU does take up jobs that would traditionally be done by a young Irish person. Therefore, people in their teens are not getting decent life experience before heading off to college or whatever they choose to do. This is causing problems for their parents financially and their future prospects.

But…..dey durka derrrrrr! DURKA DURRRR!

Good theory…..although I don’t see too many polish or eastern European girls hooked up with nice Irish country lads…unfortunately… :-(

Aye, thwt’d improve the beauty of the Irish by a large chunk in one generation

In all fairness, mass emigration from Ireland has been to countries that are either very prosperous or experiencing a boom. For example, in Australia currently with the mining boom. In all the places I have travelled, I have never met an Irish person in receipt of that countries social welfare benefits and living exclusively on that. Irish people go abroad to work, end of story.

Nobody in the world doesn’t know that Ireland is suffering terribly economically speaking, and of our high unemployment rate. I would question why anyone would want to come here if they didn’t have an in demand skill. Yet we still receive a decent amount of EU/non EU immigration. Could our generous social welfare system have anything to do with it?

I definitely don’t want to stop immigration to our country but I would really like to see it being controlled more.

King Olaf: yeah, but this article is about immigrants buying houses. Do you think they buy it from social welfare? You seem to mix 2 things. Whoever is buying house here must be well off with permanent work and fairly decent one and with loads of money saved anyways for deposit I think?

King Olaf,
“Irish people go abroad to work, end of story.”
Not so, I knew plenty in London who claimed welfare while working cash in hand.

@Fizi – I was responding to the comment, not the article. I don’t think the majority of immigrants from outside the EU can afford to buy a house in Ireland. My point was more about the social benefits of moving to Ireland, one of the most generous social welfare systems around and in some cases, the allocation of a council house. Like it or not, these sort of benefits were paid for by Irish/EU tax payers and therefore should in most cases only go to those citizens if they are in need of it.

@Rommel – You have me on that one. I am only stating my opinion as I have experienced it on these things though, not facts. Also my point was that I don’t think anyone from Ireland would specifically move somewhere happy in the knowledge they were going to live exclusively on social welfare. As I said above, Ireland has one of the best social welfare systems in the EU, so why would you move anywhere else to specifically claim the dole. You most likely are correct though as the UK is one of the better EU countries to claim benefits.

Well, actually, Glyn, “human beings” don’t have a right to come Ireland to make a living.
EU nationals do have that right.
Others do not. They must apply for a visa / work permit / naturalisation etc…

It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.

Stray mutt, you clearly need to watch more south park..

Dey dirka dirr!

Tell me exactly Stray Mutt, What jobs will the Irish not do? And who did these undoable jobs before we had mass immigration to these shores?

The jobs in the service industry for a start….. In every country there’re wasters, we have our fair share of them, so if anyone is willing to come over here, work and contribute to society , I say Céad Míle Fáilte, it’s just a matter of time until most sponges will be caught.

If any of them can do a service job with a smile I’d be thrilled to see them. Ireland must have the most dour cafe, bar and hotel staff in the world. Or maybe that is only the way they are to the Irish… tourists seem to think we are very smiley and friendly.

I can’t remember the last time I was served in a bar or restaurant by an Irish person. I’m not trying to be funny and it’s a genuine observation.

@ John F: Personally know of an abbattoir which has mostly immigrant workers – most of the boners (people taking meat off the carcass) are from Brazil, and most of the packers are from Poland. They would hire twice the amount of staff that they presently have, but only few Irish people are willing to work in the abbattoir.

Its Irish bosses that hire them..because they’re easier to bully and manipulate…best of luck to them, they’ve as much right to be here as we have to be in Boston, Sydney, Berlin or Rio…just another decoy for our home-grown thieves and their racist buddies.
Hit that with yer downthumbs ye dumbdowns.

They did jobs Irish people didn’t want to do? True
Which raises the question, should we have imported immigrants to that work so that Irish people did’t have to do those jobs and can sit around on the dole? Anyone who was “long term” unemployed in 2006 was a layabout.

Which is what they should have been asking 10 years ago.
Now of course it’s not because the Irish people won’t do the jobs, but because they can’t do the jobs.
Too many brickies and carpenters and not enough engineers…

Good too see so many are quick to jump on their fellow countrymen and bad mouth to the hilt. Such a friendly, welcoming country.

John F.
I will give you a subtle hint.
In your next 24 hours just observe the jobs taken by foreigners.
Foreigners who will work for between 7 & 12 Euro per hour.
A few examples: hospital staff, nursing home staff, general cleaners, minders,
Retail staff etc.
The list is endless.
The jobs are there.
They are on offer on a daily basis.
Why do you rarely see Irish people take up these jobs?!

Stray Mutt, you won’t see some Irish people take those jobs because they’d be worse off by working.

If they’ve kids, they’d have to pay creche of a 800 – 1000 a month (who earning 8 quid an hour can afford that?).
They might lose their medical card and their rent allowance etc…
A farcical situation…

I suppose there are 2 types of Immigrants in this country Jodi, Those who made a formal application to come here, applied for relevant visa and came here legally and those who came here illegally or under a false pretence (Bogus Asylum Seekers) and in the usual fashion in which the country is run the Irish Government generally reward those who break the rules while generally making it harder for those who play by the rules, sadly thats how things work in Ireland!

There are 3 types, you forgot EU nationals.
3 types: non-EU nationals on work permits, EU nationals, and refugees…(well, there’s also asylum seekers too)

What type of immigrants do you hate?EEC ones(western Europe not Eastern I mean) or all the other non nationals?

Me? Did you not realise that was an old joke? Do you read stuff at all or do you just randomly pick out key words like an automatic cv scanner? Seriously, cop on!

And what is the EEC? Read the papers much these days?

They eat our brains!

@Felix not only they took all our jobs but they are also on the dole ;)

They must be really into writing letters home to tell them about their new houses as every time I go into the post office there is a massive queue of them!

Der terk ar jarbs!!!

Dur Dur Dur durrrrrrrrrrbs

Anyone wondering about “They took our jobs” references, here’s a compilation of South Park: (WARNING: NSFW. And really gross in places.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=768h3Tz4Qik

It looks like irony is lost on many readers of the Journal judging from the number of thumbs down.

More spin.
”Look those foreigners are buying up your homes”

No worries because
(1) The government have already sold the entire country.
and
(2) Most of the Irish people have voted with their feet when it comes to buying a home in Ireland and have left the country.

Irony is not lost – the joke is way overused and hence losing its comic value.

Compared to easy now, down with that sort of thing. It doesnt even get a mention

What debts Irish are paying which immigrants don’t what are you talking about? Also still much more Irish are buying houses than immigrants do by percentage, did you read news carefully please? Finally many immigrants cannot afford buying house here same like many Irish can’t. Its not about being Irish or not, but it’s about having decent job and income or not. Also bare in mind that being immigrant it’s probably even harder to buy house and settle here than for most Irish as they usually don’t have relatives and big famillies here to help them and to give that kick-start into new life. So I could draw another conclusion on that, most immigrants must be really hard working and determined to achieve that. Good, better for Ireland this way than having just seasonal workers who take their Ireland earned money back abroad.

And you can blame IRISH politicians, IRISH bankers, IRISH developers, and a smattering of EUROPEAN politicians for your lower pension…

What a load of rubbish

???? would this experience be coming from countries such as the UK, the US, Australia, Canada? Time to send all the immigrants home perhaps?

good thinkin Glyn..that would remove all the whiteboys from the US, Oz, Canada…now where will we stack all those returned Gaels..???

They took our pensions!! Christ I’ve heard it all now.

Damn right…why can’t they stay home and do the unpaid job of clearing out the real problem…our exploiting bosses and politicians who think economic deportation is democratic management.
Ibec and the chambers must be laughing at the Irish lumpen snarling at the even poorer immigrant trying to feed themselves….while they stash ALL our wealth offshore. Some of these ‘illegals’ are from west Africa, where Irish trawlers have ruined their local fishing grounds…leaving them two choices, head for Europe(no easy matter, ask the illegal Irish in the US)or crime. Where do ye think the increase in piracy comes from?
Globalisation is strictly for corporations and capital, who exist in a borderless world of tax-free heaven…the borders are to manage the labour units…thats the people. Productivity and the ‘invisible hand of the market’ competition are driving towards zero social services sweatshop earth. Check out http://www.treasureislands.org