Economics commentator Cormac Lucey has said that Ireland needs to recognise that “our duties to our own people come first” in regard to the exacerbation of the housing crisis by the rise in migrant and asylum seeker numbers entering the country.
The financial expert, who is a economics columnist with the Sunday Times, told RTÉ’s Upfront with Katie Hannon that a fundamental question needed to be addressed, namely whether universal obligations to house refugees could be reconciled with “housing our own people”.
“If we are building as few houses as we are, then that is going to be immensely difficult, somebody has to lose out,” he said.
Asked if a pause was needed in taking in refugees, the economics commentator said “our duties to our own people come first.”
When asked by presenter Katie Hannon why he said that, Mr Lucey answered: “I say it because I feel it,” adding that Ireland needed to look at what was happening in Europe.
“Eleven Schengen countries – the EU countries that operate borderless travel – have suspended Schengen. The Germans have reinstituted border controls, and in November they had 4,000 applications for refugee status, the previous month before they brought back border controls, they had 18,000,” he said.
“What’s happening in Europe is that the universality concept is bumping into the political reality of the “we are a national community concept”, ” he said.
“There are no infinite resources to look after everybody,” as President Macron of France has said, “we cannot welcome all the misery in the world – and something has to give.”
Mr Lucey was responding to a call from a woman in the audience for Ireland to pause in immigration, saying time was needed to refocus and to provide for those already here.
However, Sineád Gibney of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission said that the direct provision system was operating in “crisis response mode” for twenty-five years, and that what was needed was a robust, transparent and fair system.
A robust and safe system, she said, “would allow people to have their claims heard, and meets their needs during that time – that ultimately follows through with good integration measures that allow people to participate in society and contribute in the way that they desperately want to.”
We need a robust system – @sineadgibney
Sinéad Gibney is the Chief Commissioner for Human Rights & Equality in Ireland and she shares her view on #RTEUpfront about immigration and the changes to the supports given to Ukrainians living here in Ireland. pic.twitter.com/Ydi4kpTnrN
— Upfront with Katie Hannon (@RTEUpfront) December 11, 2023
Also on the programme, local people from Dromahair in Leitrim said they were opposing a plan to bring 155 asylum claimants to the village.
A spokeswoman said that people felt they had been given no reason to trust the Department of Integration
‘There has been a complete lack of communication’
Fiona is from Dromahair in Leitrim. She is concerned about plans to bring in 155 international protection applicants to the area. #RTEUpfront pic.twitter.com/FjpA0TNLF0
— Upfront with Katie Hannon (@RTEUpfront) December 11, 2023
Cork South West TD Michael Collins said that Ireland should have been more careful with the number of immigrants that the country had taken in, and that people were now sleeping in tents.
He said that the welfare offered by Ireland was “too generous” in comparison to other EU countries, and that the country should have acted to “slow the flow” earlier.
He also said that local communities who had been welcoming just “couldn’t cope” anymore.