One of the things I write here fairly regularly, on the matter of immigration, and which proves quite popular with readers is that when it comes to inward migration, the establishment in Ireland has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to sums.
The maths are very simple: If you are building, as Ireland did last year, 20-30,000 new houses every year, and adding – as Ireland did – more than 70,000 people, then there is going to be a shortage of housing. There is going to be a shortage of hospital beds. There is going to be a shortage of school places. All of those things are coming to pass in Ireland largely because the people who run the place think that basic sums are fundamentally immoral: Saying “we can’t make these numbers work” is essentially racist and far right. Therefore, we simply take as many inward migrants as wish to come here, and then find something else to blame the crisis on – landlords, maybe. Or the Minister for Housing.
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