Now we can't get qualified workers.
YES, we have an immigration problem from Romania, Nigeria, the Ukraine. (Many of them qualified professionals in their own country) But they cannot work in their field here because..they are automatically classified as spongers.
Yup, I agree, there are many who are. But NOT every single person who sits/and nearly suffocates in the back of a trailer to eek out a better life for themselves is a sponger off the system. I was served a drink tonight by a surgeon...he was from the Eastern block, but needed to get towards a free life for his family. What the hell is wrong with that?
BTW..I'm an Irish girl, 30 next week, qualified journalist with over 10 years experience, and quite conservative. Do you think Dubya's gonna hand me a work permit to get into your country? No.
Mores to the point, would you give me one? Probably.
Currently our government is busy giving away all of our engineering jobs, and putting American engineers out of work. Maybe in a couple of years they will start destroying the journalist profession in this country. Just give it time.
BTW..I'm an Irish girl, 30 next week, qualified journalist with over 10 years experience, and quite conservative. Do you think Dubya's gonna hand me a work permit to get into your country? No.
Your response pretty well confirms my dislike of journalists and their definitions of "conservative" (which usually means an unwillingness to rock the boat and a propensity for groupthink and political correctness, which, nowadays, means "liberal", not conservative, using the terms in their American sense). It also confirms my decision long ago not to go into journalism, or academia (a similar phenomenon of status-anxiety driven courtiers).
Nowhere in your post do you indicate whether these immigrants are legal or illegal; also on the one hand you claim that Ireland needs these qualified professional workers, and then on the other hand you claim they are either sponging off of the system or working menial jobs. Which is it? Don't blame the anti-immigration crowd because your government refuses to clean up the mess created by your immigration and social welfare laws.
Frankly, your post is one long feminine whinge about how awful things are for immigrants, and how (by implication) anyone who complains about this situation is really just a big meanie and a racist. The central thrust of your message is that immigration law should be based on what's good for the immigrants (as they define it) rather than what is good for your nation. This is a recipe for disaster, which you will be tasting of shortly.
More and more people are growing tired of the dominant elite's disdain for democracy and traditional culture, and its overweening desire to turn the world into a police state that looks like a giant version of Disney World, sans mouse ears. This kind of evasion (implying your opponent is racist) isn't going to fly in future; and Ireland is in nowhere near as bad a situation as the USA. But give it time.