The Irish government’s decision to spend around €1 billion on migrants in 2022 is “outrageous”, a populist leader within the country has said.
The Irish government’s decision to spend around €1 billion (~£844 million/$1.02 billion) on migrants ostensibly from Ukraine has been slammed as “outrageous” and “wrong-headed” by a populist leader, who described the small island nation as no longer having anywhere to house new arrivals.
Despite being one of the EU countries furthest away from Ukraine, Ireland has taken in a huge swathe of refugees allegedly from the Eastern European country, with the country ranking third overall in the number of migrants per capita received by the EU, falling behind Poland and Latvia, near neighbours of Ukraine and Russia.
According to a report by The Times, politicians in Ireland have now confirmed that the country is likely to spend around €1 billion on migrants said to be from Ukraine alone, with a further undisclosed figure also to be spent on a sudden surge of definitively non-Ukrainian migrants this year.
For context, according to official government statistics, Ireland’s revenue service collected a gross €96.6 billion in 2021, suggesting that — if 2022’s tax haul remains similar to last year’s — Ireland may spend over 1 per cent of its gross tax haul on migrants this year while the general public struggles with record high rents and massive inflation.
“It’s an outrageous abuse of taxpayers’ money,” Irish Freedom Party president and veteran populist politician Hermann Kelly told Breitbart Europe.
“As demand for housing and rents increase the government sends out search parties for more migrants,” he continued. “It’s wrong-headed madness. Ireland is full and we simply have nowhere to put these people.”
While the cost of taking in massive waves of migrants is set to be enormous for Ireland, the surge’s impact on housing in the country is likely to be an even greater concern for many in the country.
In particular, questions are now swirling as to where migrants currently residing in university accommodation could possibly be housed when students return next month, with the state rapidly running out of both public and private accommodation for both migrants and its own citizens.
Around 3,000 alleged refugees reportedly have been told that they must vacate their university accommodation by the end of the month, though Kelly told Breitbart Europe that there “will be uproar” if college students end up returning “in September to find their apartment has been allocated to ‘Ukrainian migrants’.”
All the while, the number of homeless people in Ireland continues to climb amid the country’s crippling housing crisis, with Ireland’s state-owned broadcaster reporting last month that figures are now nearing the previous all-time high, having reached 10,492 in June.
“We have to look after our own homeless first,” Kelly said, emphasising again to Breitbart Europe that “Ireland is full.”
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