Immigration and market forces

[erigena]

There are a few implicit assumptions in this rather fraught discussion that need to be looked at;

1.Ireland is legally equivalent to the mainly Anglo-Saxon parts of the “New world” to which the Irish emigrated, often under duress. This is demonstrably untrue; land claims in north America were never meant to be decided there under a 1703 court ruling. Acting on foot of this, a Canadian lawyer performed a citizen's arrest on a judge in the nineteen nineties and got away with it. The Irish have been in situ on the island for 10 millennia.
2.On the same theme, the Anglo-saxon claim on the USA depends on a casuist notion that there really weren't any people there when they got there because people are ....well, Christian, white, whatever. A few centuries of genocide, and that indeed seemed to be the case
3.We needed emigration to construct the so-called economic boom. IMHO, it is much better to consider Ireland as an entity prone to periods of mania in various directions with the recent neoliberal/neocon madness equal in irrationalism as the worst excesses of roman catholicism. Currently, Ireland exports cultural deviants like musicians by putting them under economic pressure. As the next few years will sadly tell, there was just a housing bubble after 1997, not any kind of healthy boom.

Any issues about immigration will be resolved economically as the job market dries up. However, two sinister trends did emerge;
1.The many brave immigrants who came here to work did indeed lower wages for the Irish, causing them to get further into debt.
2.Their case was not helped by the president of DCU announcing that the Irish would have to accept being a minority in their own country. As the sindo of feb 7, 2003 points out, that selfsame pres. lost the crucial legal case of his presidency in Industrial Relations, which was meant to be his academic specialty (essentially, he was trying to make it easy to fire people) Such provocative talk is perhaps the reason this thread is so heated.

[stewiegriffin]

being drunk, i dont fully grasp what it is youre saying,however musicians as cultural deviants is just genius!

[irishpeoplearewhingers]

What are you saying? Cad ba mhaith leat a ra? Was wollen Sie sagen? Que? 你说什么？wot is you bangin on about, innit.......

[erigena]

What are you saying? Cad ba mhaith leat a ra? Was wollen Sie sagen? Que? 你说什么？wot is you bangin on about, innit.......

Basically this; the immigration problem will be sorted out by economic forces as the Irish economy tanks (as is now obvious); the immigrants are not at fault; Ireland is not an immigrant country and we have a more substantial claim to it than “New world” states have to their countries; provocative statements have muddied the waters; finally, the state's treatment of musicians (see “The Irish music scam” thread) is scandalous, and echoes what it used do to writers in its RC phase.

[Thac0man]

I kind of agree. For instance the government is not building social housing to accomodate the most needy, ie. immigrants (a mistake Britian made in the 60's and 70's causing much racism and resentment). This is just a greasing policy to insure as many leave as possible when an economic down turn happens.

The government knows its on sure ground because the first lobby in Irish society to tackle immigrations effect on the economy was SIPTU, providing an antidote to the business lobbies insistance on cheap foreign labour. So the government is in a win/win situation, whether its FG/Lab or FF.