There is a benefit to writing a blog that no-one reads. It means that I have the luxury of revisiting issues on as many occasions that I see questionable opinions repeated. This inevitably brings me to the Irish Times. That the IT gives me endless inspiration is not in doubt but what will disturb an imaginary reader of this blog is the number of times I have to visit the same subjects. To prove a point I was irresistibly drawn to Conor Gallagher’s article entitled, State stops opening new asylum seeker centres in certain areas due to ‘local feedback’ and ‘violent protest. (Irish Times 14/03/25) I should have been warned, as a rule of thumb the longer the title, the less informed the story. However, motivated by my sense of duty to my fictional reader, I ploughed on. As usual, I have provided the link to his article below but to save time I will provide a quick summary for your convenience.
The article relates to the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) and their decision not to open new centres for asylum seekers in certain areas. The main reason given was that it was due to “local and political feedback”, in other words people objected to immigrants being dumped in their neighbourhood. You might think that the word, dumped used above is somewhat pejorative but we have seen similar ‘feedback‘ in regard to housing that the IT has ignored in the past and I think that this language is justified. ( see Irish Housing Crisis ) The piece goes on to explain that, as a result of this “feedback” and other issues, IPAS was experiencing difficulties housing the 18,000 asylum seekers who arrived in Ireland last year and the anticipated 15,000 expected this year. As I noted in the linked essay above, you might think that the immigration problem is smaller than you thought, with only less than 20,000 immigrants arriving each year. Hold that thought, I will come back to it.
It goes on to quote ICAS as saying, ““Fairly uniquely in the Civil Service, the work of the division is subject to significant instances of protest, instances of arson and other violence or criminality, and targeting by anti-immigration or far-right activists,”” I note that they covered themselves by limiting the reference to the Civil Service and not the wider Public Service, lest the Guards, A&E staff, Welfare and many other officials point out that they have similar or, even more serious issues in their work. I also note the obligatory reference to the far right which was the subject of my essay on the Dublin Riots. There are other reasons for the lack of suitable accommodations for IPAS customers beside “far-right, anti-immigration criminality,” such as, ” sincerely held concerns about local public service capacity”. How nice of IPAS to acknowledge that normal, non activist citizens might have concerns about the effects on the Health Service, crime, Education, housing and I will add, cultural and population balance in local communities.
The rubber hits the road when we start to look at the numbers quoted in the article. For example, IPAS states that 5,360 successful asylum seekers cannot find private accommodation due to high prices. Let me refer you back to the top of this essay when the IT was talking about immigration figures of 18k and 15k for 2024/25. The real reason why there is a housing crisis is that demand has increased exponentially, mainly driven by immigration! This is a consistent theme when there is any article linked to immigration. If we look at the chart below, created by the CSO, the size of the challenge becomes clear. Y/e April 2024 estimated immigration was 149,200. Three years ending April 2024 estimated immigration was 398,600. Let’s be charitable and assume that returning Irish immigrants, people from the UK and the EU have accommodation and will not require public funded services, That leaves the CSO termed, ‘the rest of the world’ with a three year total of 226,100 immigrants.
Whichever, figure you take it is an enormous strain on public services and local communities. For any journalist to produce any article on the impact of immigration, without putting the numbers in context is at best incompetent.
Keith Starmer, of all people, has recognised that the chaotic administration of immigration policy has to be rationalised and the people have to be assured that their culture and resources are being wisely managed. He will face an uphill struggle as large sections of his party are against any audit of welfare payments and the government has been very inept at gathering data to prevent waste or fraud. A quick example is the limited visa’s given to skilled workers to cover temporary residence in the UK. No one seems to have inserted a mechanism to ensure that when the visa expired, workers either returned home or, applied to renew the visa. It seems that the prevailing attitude is that it is just too complicated and fraught with opposition to bother about. This is surely the job of the press to represent the public against this attitude. The IT should be pushing for a full set of holistic data that can be read by the people and should energetically ask the questions that arise. Whilst writing up my latest tirade the IT obligingly published another article on the housing situation, this time entitled, “Ireland’s housing crisis: Why is there such a shortage of homes to buy and rent here?”(IT 23/03/25) No surprises here, in that there is only discussion on the supply side of the issue, totally ignoring the data issued by the CSO reflecting a huge increase on the demand side.
It seems that we have to explain basic economics to the writers of the IT and similar communicators. If there is a TARGET to produce 50,000 houses and we produce 60,000, then we are over target to the sum of 10,000 houses. If we produce only 30,000 houses, then we are under target 20,000 houses. THIS IS A MEASURE OF PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY. To measure the true state of the housing crisis we have to measure both sides of the supply and demand equation. Using both sides of the equation and substituting actual DEMAND for targets in the above example, we can apply Mr Micawber’s analysis where excess of demand over supply means unaffordable high prices and “misery” as an outcome.
Given the number of times I see this omission in the Times and other places the only conclusion I can reach is that this is a deliberate policy of disinformation /misinformation. I assume that this is because those that govern and their collaborators fear that their policies would raise racial tensions but I would argue that pretending that ‘there is nothing to see here’ and suppressing any questioning will only drive opposition underground and out of the normal democratic discourse. A truly democratic approach is to be transparent, produce joined up meaningful data and try to form a contract with the Irish people that is seen to be fair to all stakeholders. This is the mission that the IT should be pursuing but I see little evidence of this in the articles related to one of the two most important issues in the last election. What is the Irish Times afraid of?
Sources
Conor Gallagher, 14/03/25, The Irish Times, State stops opening new asylum seeker centres in certain areas due to ‘local feedback’ and ‘violent protest, https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2025/03/14/no-new-asylum-seeker-centres-in-certain-areas-due-to-local-feedbackand-criminality/?
Charts from CSO https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-pme/populationandmigrationestimatesapril2024/
Niamh Towey, 23/03/25, The Irish Times, Ireland’s housing crisis: Why is there such a shortage of homes to buy and rent here? https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/03/22/all-the-obstacles-in-front-of-us-why-is-there-such-a-shortage-of-homes-to-buy-and-rent-in-ireland/
