Tonight RTÉ will screen what appears to be – from the spooky music and shady shots in the trailer – a Very Scary Documentary about anti-immigration protests which should serve as a reliable distraction from the real issues at hand.
Given the output of the heavily taxpayer-funded station to date in relation to the issue, its unlikely that the appropriate balance will be given to the radical and rapid changes happening to Ireland’s demographic profile, and what that will mean for local communities.
Navan is a decent size Irish town whose population has grown rapidly in recent times, mostly because of its proximity to Dublin. The last Census shows that more than 33,000 people now live in the town. Issues such as a lack of transport and infrastructure, along with housing and the and strain on health services regularly make local headlines.
Ennis is a similar sized town, as is Bray, and all three are bigger than, say Kilkenny or Ballbriggan or Naas. Around 33,000 people is a sizeable number, especially in the Irish context. Yet, RTÉ seems curiously disinterested in the fact that the number of migrants now being housed in asylum accommodation has now passed an unprecedented 32,000.
According to the latest report from International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS), another 385 applicants arrived in the week ended 15th September, bringing the number of people now living in asylum accommodation in Ireland to a number close to the entire population of Navan.
That represents 32,192 people needing accommodation, food and clothing, medical services, schooling and other supports – and that number does not include the more than 100,000 Ukrainians who have come here since the war began.
The steep upwards trend is evident not only from the graph but the underlying numbers – more than a four-fold increase since December 2021, and no signs of slowing down, despite the tough talk from Simon Harris and Fine Gael on the issue.
In fact, an IPAS report from July shows that the number expected to arrive this year will smash previous records. In 2022, there were 13,651 applications for asylum in Ireland, while 2023 saw 13,277 additional arrivals. But if the trend to June continues (and it has thus far in July and August), then we should expect that 20,000 migrants claiming asylum will have gone through the IPAS system by the end of 2024.
As ever, it is necessary to point out that, despite the impassioned speeches in the Dáil and the endless spin of NGOs, huge numbers arriving in Ireland claiming asylum are not, in fact, from war torn countries at all.
The largest proportion of those living in IPAS accommodation are, in fact, from Nigeria, with about 20% of all accommodation occupancy filled with that nationality. Another 10% are from Georgia, now designated a “safe country” by the Irish government, with similar numbers also being housed from Algeria.
There are already, according to the Department of Integration, more than 2,000 asylum seekers homeless, as evidenced by tents along the canal and in Beggars Bush amongst other area, despite Simon Harris saying those days were over.
Yet the numbers keep rising inexorably. Perhaps the long tail of the tweets and videos issued by Minister Roderic O’Gorman promising free own door accommodation and much else to asylum seekers, is still at play, or perhaps Ireland is simply considered a soft touch, spending billions on migrant accommodation during a severe housing shortage, and letting more than 10,000 people enter the country without passports or correct documentation.
These are the issues which RTÉ should be examining. But don’t hold your breath. The taxpayer-funded station’s focus on the issues around immigration always curiously seem to dovetail with that of the government.