The overwhelming majority in Ireland have turned against the open borders agenda favoured by elites in Dublin, with eight in ten now saying that they think immigration is too high.
Over the past two decades, Ireland has seen a radical shift in its demographic makeup as mass migration policies saw the foreign-born population more than double since 2006 and now makes up a fifth of the entire population of the Emerald Isle.
Yet, this agenda of allowing increasing waves of migrants into the country is out of step with what the rest of the country wants, with a survey from Amárach Research on behalf of the Irish Daily Mail of 1,000 people finding that 79 per cent believe that the number of immigrants allowed in per year is “too high” as opposed to just 2 per cent who favoured more immigration.
There is also a growing sense that the neo-liberal government is not concerned with the opinion of the people on the issue, with 61 per cent saying that Dublin does not care how they feel about immigration, rising to 68 per cent among those between the ages of 35 and 54.
Additionally, nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) agreed with the notion that “the Government isn’t in control of immigration to Ireland” compared to just 20 per cent who disagreed.
Strikingly, it is the women of Ireland who are most concerned about the issue, with 50 per cent of women saying that immigration levels are “much to high” while just 40 per cent of men felt the same.
Just last night fresh protests broke out in Newtownmountkennedy, County Wicklow, Ireland outside a new venue for migrant accommodation that locals said they didn’t want in their neighbourhood. A Gript report states there had been peaceful protests against creating a tent encampment for new migrants for six weeks, but that locals felt they had been totally ignored and consequently feel they “do not have a voice”.
Remarkably, “a large number of balaclava clad workers” are said to have been “forced” onto the site by police so they could work to prepare it for the new arrivals a few days ago. Now, police say there were a number of arrests overnight into this morning and that police officers were forced to “defend themselves” against protesters, and claimed there was “disinformation” being spread about the clash.
The poll comes as the government has been given “stark warnings” about the nation’s budget for the asylum system causing several government departments to exceed their allocated spending to handle the influx of foreigners.
The asylum system itself, known as ‘International Protection’ in Ireland, is struggling to house the number of asylum seekers, forcing the government to commandeer hotels and other buildings throughout the country to house migrants, sparking angry protests across the nation.
Yet, according to the Department of Integration, there are at least 1,686 alleged asylum seekers who have not been given accommodation from the state, leaving many to sleep rough on the streets and others taking to a tent city in the heart of Dublin outside the International Protection office.
According to the 2022 Census, 20 per cent of the residential population of Ireland was born outside of the country, representing 1,017,437 people. This is an increase of nearly a fifth since 2016, rising by 207,031. In comparison, in 2006, just 420,000 people living in Ireland were foreign-born.
The drastic rise in immigration has taken the population to 5,150,000 in 2022, the first time since 1851 that the population of the island nation surpassed five million.
Excluding the micro-nations of Cyprus, Malta, and Luxembourg, Ireland now only trails behind Estonia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania with the highest number of immigrants per capita in the European Union.