Ireland has been completely overwhelmed by migrant arrivals with an emergency housing plan for would-be asylum seekers having now fallen through.
Ireland’s open borders government is unable to house all of the migrants entering the country, with its most recent scheme to look after alleged refugees being delayed until summer at the earliest.
Ministers had originally boasted they would not cap the number of foreign arrivals coming to the country last year, arguing the island nation would instead look after all who needed assistance. This promise was made despite the fact the state is in the midst of a crippling housing crisis that has left many native Irish homeless.
Such progressive plans have now fallen to pieces in 2023 however, with tens of thousands of arrivals last year resulting in the government completely running out of places to house migrants, leaving hundreds to join the country’s burgeoning native homeless population.
Members of the public outside Dublin Port following the housing of some 100 migrants at the former ESB office block in East Wall, Dublin which is being used as an emergency accommodation for refugees. Protesters and some residents claimed there was not enough consultation with locals ahead of the arrangement. (Niall Carson/PA Images via Getty Images)
According to a report by The Times, one of the government’s latest attempts to rectify the situation has collapsed, with integration minister Roderic O’Gorman announcing a plan to build new housing for migrants has been significantly delayed.
Officials had hoped to have around 200 modular homes built for alleged Ukrainian refugees by Easter in the hopes of alleviating stress on the system, but such homes will now not be available until mid-June by the earliest.
This is the second major delay in the construction of the emergency housing, with a substantially more ambitious 700 homes originally being earmarked to be ready for foreign arrivals by the end of last year.
“We were told these would be in place last November and there is a continuous pushback,” Eoin Ó Brion, housing spokesman for the hard-left Sinn Féin party, complained.
Irish opposition politicians have largely stayed away from criticising the origin of the ongoing migrant crisis however, with the country being overwhelmed by arrivals after the government promised last year to look after everyone who came to the country seeking refuge or asylum.
“The humanitarian response trumps anything as far as we’re concerned,” then Prime Minister Micheál Martin remarked in response to early criticisms of the country’s early mass migration plans from the neighbouring United Kingdom.
The Irish state has since quietly eaten its words in relation to such an open borders approach, with the arrival of around 70,000 migrants exhausting the country’s supply of asylum centre beds and even hotel accommodation, forcing politicians to house arrivals in the likes of disused office blocks.
Protesters march on Dublin Port following the housing of some 100 migrants at the former ESB office block in East Wall, Dublin which is being used as an emergency accommodation for refugees. (Niall Carson/PA Images via Getty Images)
Even this has not been enough however, with state-owned broadcaster RTÉ reporting that there are over 400 newly arrived asylum claimants who are now homeless as of late March.
Ireland’s department of integration has now taken to begging migrants not to come to the country online in a desperate attempt to stem the flow. Meanwhile, the general public is becoming more and more frustrated with the surge in foreign arrivals, with a growing number of protests in the country being held in order to insist “Ireland is full”.
Politicians have responded to such demonstrations by threatening to have them banned, with some public representatives suggesting that both legal and illegal migrants be granted special protections under forthcoming Irish hate speech laws to curb public criticism.