When it comes to immigration
the UK at least has the advantage of the long-standing presence of ethnic
minorities so past mistakes in integration policy (if there ever was such a
thing) can at least be built upon and addressed. Ireland, on the other hand, was
so insular that the first time I ever laid eyes on a black man was in the Luton
markets in the 70's as a kid.
Along with our 'boom' in the early 90's which made us an attractive place to "locate", there was a loophole in the Good Friday Agreement pertaining to the nationality entitlements of any child born in the Republic, giving rise to a rapid influx of asylum applicants, mainly from West Africa. Any refugee who gave birth in the Republic could automatically claim residency status on account of the citizenship rights of their child thus circumventing the Geneva conventions.
The early response was predictable and 'illegal immigrants' (which they weren't) were pilloried in the press for exploiting our lenient immigration laws while the far right painted hysterical doomsday scenarios of Irish culture and identity being submerged, our exchequer being exhausted through the misplaced good-will of our 'bleeding heart' pinko liberals, as well as the usual rabble-baiting hype over international criminal gangs setting up base here. While test cases trundled their way slowly through the European Courts vis-à-vis the GFA loophole (which the government was anxious to close down) the Office of Refugee Applications Commission (ORAC) was tightened up and the asylum-process "rationalised" to ensure as narrow a filter as possible.
Michael McDowell, an anti-immigration conservative from the Progressive Democrats (a full-throttled neo-liberal party), as Minister of Justice, appointed his own man on the three member adjudicating panel of the ORAC which led both to a spike in deportations and the slowing down of asylum processing as claims were now attempted to be assessed according to far stricter criteria which couldn't in fact ever be definitively established.
The "joke" even went around that prior to this PD-inspired money-saving 'rationalisation', ORAC officers would check the bona fides of asylum claimants under Geneva by browsing the internet CIA country factfile! - You'd think the keystone cops, through their incompetence, had been unwittingly diluting the Irish gene pool, starving our exchequer by doling out "fantastic sums" on international 'spongers' via child support and rent allowance and ultimately permitting the Irish nation to be submerged in an exploitative, multicultural invasive sea - and all this when we had record budget surpluses, 10% annual growth, 2.5 cars a piece and owned half the Bulgarian property market!
A woman I'd known all my life turned to me once and nodding towards "one of them" (an African woman in a supermarket with her two kids) told me that "we" (the Irish) had "worked so hard" it would be a shame to have to give it all away (to them) - a mixture of unadulterated greed, ignorance and an astonishing lack of empathy. Thankfully, we could cite the famine and mass emigration from our shores historically, how the Irish were allowed settle and thrive all over the world and how they eventually grew to contribute to all these host countries, crucially, once given the chance to do so - an argument at once irrefutable and incapable of shallow rejoinder which at least took some wind out of the sails of the Fortress Ireland Camp.
Now that we've had our bust and the illusion that markets grow interminably has been shattered (nicely deregulated banking sector PD's!) there's been something of a recoil - many Irish who wouldn't otherwise have experienced it now know first-hand what's it like to actually struggle to get by on a pittance, are forced into considering emigration themselves and with 14% unemployment are surviving on government hand-outs; and all, largely through no fault of their own - victims of economic circumstance, just like the individual Africans who have been coming to our shores for assistance.
There is also the inevitable feedback loop of Empire to be considered where former colonial powers who have 'made themselves at home' in over half the globe historically, experience either by design or otherwise, a strong migratory reflux; the French of course, and in the British case it is a process further facilitated by Commonwealth ties. The one thing that the Irish government actually did right (when they're not making it difficult to 'get in' in the first place that is) was take advantage of the examples of how "integration" should not be pursued; and the ghettoization 'models' of Britain and France were foremost in their minds here.
But we had a different process insofar as the direct locating of immigrants (who were in the main refugees & asylum-seekers under Geneva & 'loophole' applicants under the GFA ruling) was under government control. Unlike France and Britain (in the early days of immigration from the former colonies at least) where the influx was that of economic migrants with bona fide working visas or having genuine citizenship claims where they settled themselves into their own communities - inevitably where previous ethnic minorities had taken root and amidst low-cost housing - the Irish government instead had an opportunity to actually control the level of dispersal ensuring there was no concentrated 'pockets of poverty'.
In practice though, many areas have become 'overly-concentrated' (Blanchardstown, Clondalkin, Tallaght) while the situating of hostels for asylum-seekers is a perennial political hot potato for local TD's and councillors - the usual shower of NIMBY's objecting to such 'foreign implantations' as though such would inevitably 'diminish the neighbourhood'. The Irish obsession with 'property prices' too - the unwritten bottom-line for many of these location decisions.
One of our local councillors recently tried to highlight the conditions in one these hostels, the weekly pay allowance (19 euro) and the length of time for applications to be processed but was shot down in a hurry by a facebook avalanche of begrudgers who wanted our own homeless problem to be sorted out before we start worrying about "foreigners" who at least have a roof over their head. Actually, under Geneva, they are "our own", insofar as they are our responsibility and are in effect for the most part transitioning to citizenship and are getting no more or less than they're entitled to under international law.
The other point is that instead of having them forced to sit about twiddling their thumbs waiting for the interminable bureaucracy of ORAC to do its job they could be allowed take up voluntary work -even manning soup kitchens or hostels for the Irish homeless. I know several families in this position who have been waiting up to eight or nine years for their applications to be processed; they've watched their kids go through primary and secondary and even up to university level while they're stagnating in limbo not knowing whether they'll ever be entitled to stay in the country; its pretty absurd.
As always, the bottom line is funding and resources not it seems the substantive case of their being entitled to refugee status (which in many cases Irish authorities have no way of proving). Once an asylum-seeker has a positive review on their case they're entitled to benefits (rent allowance, child support, a weekly cheque) but they're also entitled to work and pay taxes. So the thinking seems to be that if they're allowed leap the first hurdle they will automatically become "a drain" particularly if their language skills, job experience and qualifications are not up to European norms.
There are "integration programmes" available which are part-funded by the government which do offer basic language, computer, hairstyling, cookery courses and so on .. but despite this I've known asylum-seekers who have done all these top-up training programmes for years and still have had no progress in their applications ... yes, up to ten years.
Effectively the best years of their lives as the bulk arrived in their twenties -
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76034
I was there at St. Patrick's that day and the biggest crowds weren't fellow refugees or asylum-seeker support groups but a right-wing anti-immigration platform which cobbled together protestors from the adjoining working-class flats (some still in their pyjamas/others horsing back tins of cider) bearing banners that read "asylum-seekers out" and "Ireland for the Irish"!
Along with our 'boom' in the early 90's which made us an attractive place to "locate", there was a loophole in the Good Friday Agreement pertaining to the nationality entitlements of any child born in the Republic, giving rise to a rapid influx of asylum applicants, mainly from West Africa. Any refugee who gave birth in the Republic could automatically claim residency status on account of the citizenship rights of their child thus circumventing the Geneva conventions.
The early response was predictable and 'illegal immigrants' (which they weren't) were pilloried in the press for exploiting our lenient immigration laws while the far right painted hysterical doomsday scenarios of Irish culture and identity being submerged, our exchequer being exhausted through the misplaced good-will of our 'bleeding heart' pinko liberals, as well as the usual rabble-baiting hype over international criminal gangs setting up base here. While test cases trundled their way slowly through the European Courts vis-à-vis the GFA loophole (which the government was anxious to close down) the Office of Refugee Applications Commission (ORAC) was tightened up and the asylum-process "rationalised" to ensure as narrow a filter as possible.
Michael McDowell, an anti-immigration conservative from the Progressive Democrats (a full-throttled neo-liberal party), as Minister of Justice, appointed his own man on the three member adjudicating panel of the ORAC which led both to a spike in deportations and the slowing down of asylum processing as claims were now attempted to be assessed according to far stricter criteria which couldn't in fact ever be definitively established.
The "joke" even went around that prior to this PD-inspired money-saving 'rationalisation', ORAC officers would check the bona fides of asylum claimants under Geneva by browsing the internet CIA country factfile! - You'd think the keystone cops, through their incompetence, had been unwittingly diluting the Irish gene pool, starving our exchequer by doling out "fantastic sums" on international 'spongers' via child support and rent allowance and ultimately permitting the Irish nation to be submerged in an exploitative, multicultural invasive sea - and all this when we had record budget surpluses, 10% annual growth, 2.5 cars a piece and owned half the Bulgarian property market!
A woman I'd known all my life turned to me once and nodding towards "one of them" (an African woman in a supermarket with her two kids) told me that "we" (the Irish) had "worked so hard" it would be a shame to have to give it all away (to them) - a mixture of unadulterated greed, ignorance and an astonishing lack of empathy. Thankfully, we could cite the famine and mass emigration from our shores historically, how the Irish were allowed settle and thrive all over the world and how they eventually grew to contribute to all these host countries, crucially, once given the chance to do so - an argument at once irrefutable and incapable of shallow rejoinder which at least took some wind out of the sails of the Fortress Ireland Camp.
Now that we've had our bust and the illusion that markets grow interminably has been shattered (nicely deregulated banking sector PD's!) there's been something of a recoil - many Irish who wouldn't otherwise have experienced it now know first-hand what's it like to actually struggle to get by on a pittance, are forced into considering emigration themselves and with 14% unemployment are surviving on government hand-outs; and all, largely through no fault of their own - victims of economic circumstance, just like the individual Africans who have been coming to our shores for assistance.
There is also the inevitable feedback loop of Empire to be considered where former colonial powers who have 'made themselves at home' in over half the globe historically, experience either by design or otherwise, a strong migratory reflux; the French of course, and in the British case it is a process further facilitated by Commonwealth ties. The one thing that the Irish government actually did right (when they're not making it difficult to 'get in' in the first place that is) was take advantage of the examples of how "integration" should not be pursued; and the ghettoization 'models' of Britain and France were foremost in their minds here.
But we had a different process insofar as the direct locating of immigrants (who were in the main refugees & asylum-seekers under Geneva & 'loophole' applicants under the GFA ruling) was under government control. Unlike France and Britain (in the early days of immigration from the former colonies at least) where the influx was that of economic migrants with bona fide working visas or having genuine citizenship claims where they settled themselves into their own communities - inevitably where previous ethnic minorities had taken root and amidst low-cost housing - the Irish government instead had an opportunity to actually control the level of dispersal ensuring there was no concentrated 'pockets of poverty'.
In practice though, many areas have become 'overly-concentrated' (Blanchardstown, Clondalkin, Tallaght) while the situating of hostels for asylum-seekers is a perennial political hot potato for local TD's and councillors - the usual shower of NIMBY's objecting to such 'foreign implantations' as though such would inevitably 'diminish the neighbourhood'. The Irish obsession with 'property prices' too - the unwritten bottom-line for many of these location decisions.
One of our local councillors recently tried to highlight the conditions in one these hostels, the weekly pay allowance (19 euro) and the length of time for applications to be processed but was shot down in a hurry by a facebook avalanche of begrudgers who wanted our own homeless problem to be sorted out before we start worrying about "foreigners" who at least have a roof over their head. Actually, under Geneva, they are "our own", insofar as they are our responsibility and are in effect for the most part transitioning to citizenship and are getting no more or less than they're entitled to under international law.
The other point is that instead of having them forced to sit about twiddling their thumbs waiting for the interminable bureaucracy of ORAC to do its job they could be allowed take up voluntary work -even manning soup kitchens or hostels for the Irish homeless. I know several families in this position who have been waiting up to eight or nine years for their applications to be processed; they've watched their kids go through primary and secondary and even up to university level while they're stagnating in limbo not knowing whether they'll ever be entitled to stay in the country; its pretty absurd.
As always, the bottom line is funding and resources not it seems the substantive case of their being entitled to refugee status (which in many cases Irish authorities have no way of proving). Once an asylum-seeker has a positive review on their case they're entitled to benefits (rent allowance, child support, a weekly cheque) but they're also entitled to work and pay taxes. So the thinking seems to be that if they're allowed leap the first hurdle they will automatically become "a drain" particularly if their language skills, job experience and qualifications are not up to European norms.
There are "integration programmes" available which are part-funded by the government which do offer basic language, computer, hairstyling, cookery courses and so on .. but despite this I've known asylum-seekers who have done all these top-up training programmes for years and still have had no progress in their applications ... yes, up to ten years.
Effectively the best years of their lives as the bulk arrived in their twenties -
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76034
I was there at St. Patrick's that day and the biggest crowds weren't fellow refugees or asylum-seeker support groups but a right-wing anti-immigration platform which cobbled together protestors from the adjoining working-class flats (some still in their pyjamas/others horsing back tins of cider) bearing banners that read "asylum-seekers out" and "Ireland for the Irish"!
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