Slí Chaol (the narrow way)

  The answer to this question is, clearly, yes for the Irish Government which recently decided to cut allowances for many Ukrainian refugees (known as Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection).   Three arguments were cited: It would be unfair for some Ukrainian refugees to get more than other Ukrainian refugees who have arrived since mid-March of which there are an estimated 1,000 or so. Ireland’s social welfare and general financial payment was too generous for Ukrainian refugees compared to other EU Member States and this explains why so many came to Ireland over the last two years. It was financially and politically unsustainable. I will address these points, below. First, let’s set the political context as well as the facts about what seems to be happening (I say seems because a recent announcement about changes to payments for some Ukrainians is shockingly sparse and vague on so many points). Political context The sudden and sharp change in tone by Government on immigrat...

  Last week I posted a blog about comparative data relating to asylum seekers including numbers deported or ordered to leave.   Coincidentally, some breaking news came to my attention after posting the blog that EUROSTAT had released data apparently showing that Ireland had the highest rate of ‘illegal’ non-EU migrants per 1,000 of population. This was odd because the data that I had carefully extracted from Eurostat, checked and published on this blogsite showed the complete opposite!   Surely, I was wrong and Eurostat was right? I rechecked and rechecked data sources, formulae and the published Eurostat document cited by a number of media outlets and jumped on by a few politicians in Ireland to make the case that not only was immigration ‘out of control’ but that we had more ‘illegal’ immigrants per 1,000 of population than any other EU Member State.   All my raw data were the same as those used by EUROSTAT.   I was using a figure of 1,485 ‘illegals’ (I woul...

  Cromwell was not the last English ruler to offer a stark choice to its neighbours.   Recent weeks have seen a further ramping up of the rhetoric on immigration supplemented by loose playing with numbers on migration. ‘Facts’ that turn out to be other than robust statistics which can be stood over by the relevant public agencies have entered the discourse. Alarm and even panic have been spread by irresponsible commentators and fuelled by sensationalised opinion polling which has very limited value in my view.   What does count is election time and how those elected behave afterwards.   In the most recent turn of events attention has been focussed away from the majority of immigrants to those who have arrived as refugees.   As discussed in earlier blogs on this site, asylum seekers account for little more than 10% of total annual inflow. Suddenly, we have been presented with a highly simplistic categorisation of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ immigrants as well as ‘gen...