RTE online poll
national |
miscellaneous |
news report 
Sunday March 02, 2003 00:03
by Ronan Stenson
Online Poll on RTE site: "Do you agree that the State should have the authority to deport foreign nationals who have Irish-born children?" The poll can be accessed at: http://www.rte.ie It is currently 75% yes and 25% no
Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5The figures are now 71.5% for "yes" and 28.5% for a "no" vote.
There is still a long way to go to narrow the gap.
It's a racket, they get knocked up to stay in the country. They can sod off.
Only a tiny fraction of asylum seekers have used parenthood as a reason for their application to stay here. Most asylum seekers come from countries where there are serious infringments of human rights, and where torture and assasination are carried out on a routine basis. Why not drop into Amnesty sometime and find out how many countries behave in this way? If you know the facts you will not make ignorant remarks.
The Irish people have never been consulted about the most fundamental change in Irish demographics since the Plantation of Ulster. If they were I have no doubt they would say Yes to limited immigration from countries in need, but No to the vast numbers that have come in the past 3 or 4 years.
And people would support genuine immigration from those in need throughout the world. What is noticeable now is that the immigrants come from jsut a few countries. How come the Argentinians--especially the Argentinians of Irish ancestry--don't make it here ? It's because the ones who come here from Nigeria, Russia etc. are by no means the poorest, in fact by definition they have to be very well off to purchase their tickets to come here, as well as paying smugglers etc. The ufortunate Argentinians, and other South Americans, are far away and have developed no people-smuggling networks like the Nigerians have. So they never make it here, even though the Argentinian Irish have long-standing links with this country. It was crazy to read recently that there are many hundreds of Africans now living in Longford, but there are no Irish-Argentinians, even though the majority of the forefathers of Irish Argentinians came precisely from Longford and Westmeath !
The bottom line is this: Irish immigration policy should be determined by Irish people, not by anyone else. And we should give special consideration to the descendants of the Irish diaspora in places like Argentina.
The supreme court decision was harsh but fair.
It had to be given the current legislation.
We cannot let everybody stay here who wants to no matter how much we may want that.
We can work internationally to ensure democratic regimes abroad so people can stay in their own countries, which is what they want most times, you'll find.
Being born on the same piece of land as an other nation does not mean that you are of that nation.
You can change your citizenship but not your race.
Anyone born on the island of foreign extraction should be given the oppertunity to claim citizenship at 18 years of age.
They were the ones born here, not their parents.
It was the only practial solution.
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