Friday, December 28, 2007
Bertie draws the border back in…
Last time I was stopped at the border would have been by a single Garda around 1990, probably after a major attack somewhere in Northern Ireland. He was stopping most cars just before the Carrickdale hotel creating a tailback that went right back across the actual boarder. When we eventually got up to him he engaged my Derby born English colleague in a long conversation about the mixed fortunes of Derby County (the Guard’s favourite team), and after a decent interval he waved us on. Yesterday, travelling on a Belfast to Dublin coach we were pulled in by a Garda with the words ‘Immigration’ emblazoned on his back and asked for passports and other forms of photo ID. It’s a development that has not been covered in the media, yet it would appear to have important implications both for Schengen debate, and the future of the Common Travel Area.
Bertie Ahern seems convinced that most of the immigration travel is north to south, although official figures suggest it is about equal each way. So is Dublin preparing to draw a hard land border back in, in preference to sharing protocols and information with British? There is no sign of immigration control on east west flights between Dublin and Britain, yet at least.
Mick Fealty @ 01:45 PM
Rubicon,
Are there no employment standards to be adhered to or no minimum wage requirements.
Or are you saying the cute hoors have found a way around them?Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 07:36 PMSurely, border controls will, if anything, make people-trafficking an even more lucrative occupation.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 07:45 PMRubicon,
http://embraceni.org/category/trafficking/
It is another one of those crimes the PSNI aren’t too concerned with but a major British problem and a reason why Ireland needs to be concerned about leaky British borders.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 07:51 PMMark - thanks for the link - it gives room for serious thought but also raises questions that create a grey area between economic migration and human degradation - even when migrants enter the country legally.
Joe - yes there is a way around the regulations and law - or at least there seems to be. There are 2 factors that seem to be most important; employment agencies and the existence of 2 sets of labour laws each side of the border.
Eg; A young group of girls in Vilnius sees an employment agency ad for work in the UK with advertised “average rates of pay”. They sign up and some weeks later find themselves working 14 hours a day. Their accommodation is provided - as are meals but the ‘cost’ is deducted at source by the agency. The accommodation and food are awful but there’s not enough money left over to seek anything different - and even if they could - they’d need to find alternative transport (laid on in their Stalag) to get them to the factory. Their English skills are poor and there’s no real help available from the dependency the employment agency has - by design - plunged them in to.
Since access to transportation can be the first impediment - access to the law is still a further reach. Once made they’ll then find that the factory is not the employer - in law the employment agency is the employer. This can be challenged - but only if one or more conditions are reached - among them;
a) the agency has kept the worker with a single employer for so long that they may be deemed to be an employee. This is easily avoided by sacking agency workers within a year - or - the agency can achieve the same by moving their workers between employers.
b) the employer treating an agency worker as an employee through granting them the same rights their own employees enjoy; i.e., spending money on their training and development or allowing them paid leave on statutory holidays.
c) the minimum wage legislation applying to employees in the UK can be circumvented when the employment agency is not a registered company within the jurisdiction.As an emigrant yourself Joe - I’m sure you’ll find enough in just the above to suggest modalities for abuse.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 08:25 PMWhat should happen is that Ireland should assert its status as an independent nation and assert its inalienable right to self-determination by retaining control of its sovereign borders, instead of surrendering control to elements that are outside the realm of accountability to the citizens of this state.
This is not a choice between a rock and a hard place (i.e. surrender territorial sovereignty to Project Socialist Superstate of Europe or surrender territorial sovereignty to the United Kingdom) despite its presentation. The option that curiously isn’t presented via the media is the default option: that a sovereign nation state retains control of its own borders. It is not presented because it is implied that Ireland has no right to either self-determination, sovereignty or independence. This colonial mentality seems to have encountered little resistance on this issue - perhaps we’ll ban the centenary of the Easter Rising?
The UK should rebuild the border between north and south if that expediency is required to secure its own territorial sovereignty. Northern nationalists can scream and cry all they wish but I see no reason to compromise Irish territorial sovereignty in order to promote Project Socialist Superstate of Europe or to facilitate the de fact re-colonisation of Ireland by the United Kingdom. Indeed, MI5’s citing its new headquarters in the north should have made it an imperative for the Republic to rebuild the border controls. Undermining Ireland’s economic interests is part of MI5’s strategy of protecting the UK’s national interests (economic interests are a national interest). Why are we allowing these agents unmonitored access to the Republic - simply because they took advantage of the removal of border controls to gain unmonitored access?
What is preventing the border between two separate and competing sovereign states from going back up is the need by northern political parties to pretend to their voters that that an all-island is the same thing as a united Ireland. That grass deception is intended also to facilitate the integration of the nationalist/republican community into the UK by comforting them with the delusion of self-determination (one state) when the actuality is de jure consolidated two-states, with the vague hope offered to die-hards that the condition is only transitional rather than permanent.
The willingness of northern nationalists to allow Irish territorial sovereignty to be compromised by the United Kingdom (if a “British Isles” approach to border control is agreed) shows that they would be happy to re-unite the island under the same terms that apply in the north. In effect, they will have moved from a position of Irish nationalism to, at worst, Carson unionism, or, at best, returning to Redmond’s vision of Home Rule under the British monarch.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 08:34 PMThanks for that lengthy reply, Rubicon.
Certainly lots of food for thought.
Possibly the biggest part of the problem there, unlike my experience, is the language difficulty.Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 08:41 PMDubliner - are northern nationalists the only nationalists left? “The willingness of northern nationalists ... “ regarding sovereignty should at least be tempered with what southern nationalists agreed to. Perhaps it’s only northern nationalists that are the threat and should be taken off the bus, questioned and re-educated before entering your Ireland?
Truth is - we never left it!
For someone who posts many sensible challenges to NI this one is most dismaying. It smacks of southern superiority based on drawing a line in history that occurs after selling out the north and now markets the same as an obligation wholly falling on northern nationalists.
PLEASE don’t speak of those your country ignored having the audacity to compromise its delusional politics - politics that has your PM in and out of a tribunal that was formed on suspicion of his corruption.
A northern nationalist has the same right to aspiration as yourself. You may not like their aspirations - but tell me - what gives them a lesser right to express them, demand them - as seek to get them through whatever legal means left them after you guys started to butter your toast?
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 08:57 PMJoe - you’re right about language - it is very important - particularly in the UK & Ireland where so few can speak a foreign language. Just before Christmas I tried speaking to my son on the phone to clarify the computer equipment he wanted. I couldn’t understand him, he got thick and hung up the phone.
There is something truly intolerant in NI and it seems based on a myopia that extends 6 counties wide and probably much further.
Even with English language skills immigrants to NI face an uncompromising ignorant and self righteous public who’ll not bother speaking slowly or stop dropping all vowels that they’re not happy replacing with “ae”.
Beyond the unfriendly welcome NI gives immigrants rests the legal framework. This framework has employees working north with few rights and even less access to enabling those rights.
In the future the economic need of NI to meet the need of its dependents will be the main reason action might occur. It won’t come soon - the south is equally as racist. NI’s excuse is that immigration is not a devolved matter - but pig ignorant racism is not inhibited by the Home Office.
The employment agencies recruiting in the east are filling posts the idle don’t want. These agencies also fill many posts in the health service - without whom the service would start to crumble. But - exploitation of foreign workers happens here and it’s not a pretty sight.
Perhaps NI is just primitive and needs primitive methods?
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 09:28 PMWell I flew back today from Glasgow to London Gatwick. And we all had to show passports. So whats that all about?
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 09:52 PMRubicon,
It is one of those areas given very little concern be government as the victims are often criminalised themselves therefore both unprotected by ‘authority’ and hiding their own abuse and exploitation as they may see it as an inevitable consequence, normal or something they will be prosecuted/deported for.
While not religious myself, that Christian site is one of the few local initiatives addressing the issue and fairplay to them.
It is a very difficult area, for example I know of one website/group set up and endorsed by politicians in Britian and Ireland that involved business travellers naming and shaming hotels/resorts that were permitting sexual slavery, child prostitution slavery etc. Whilst a well meaning project it was rightly pointed out they would be a guidebook for abusers.
Victims frightened to reveal what is happening and supporters that can compound a problem along with authority reluctant to treat it as serious is a recipe for misery. Those exploited for profit are very much a part of the economy throughout Ireland though I know of more people prosecuted for trading cheap cigarettes or fuel than humans.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 10:18 PM“we’d give your kid a place but the school needs the fees and you can’t pay ‘em.”
As far as I’m aware thats only for the children of foreign students in the south, and they already know that before entry, its stipulated up front. I know for example that many indigeonous Irish cannot get primary school places for their children, and one mother on prime time told RTE that she had bought the house in Dublin 15 forthat very reason yet was unable to secure a place for her child at 4 but had to wait until 5and a half.
There is a school soley for the children of immigrants in Balbriggan - which the local population have rightly said is racist and discriminatory, since their children are not allowed to attend. So all isn’t rosy in the Irish garden, immigration is causing major problems with people fighting over scarce resources.Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 10:33 PM“Every time I hit the refresh button on Slugger that damned video plays telling me about our fuel poverty. Stop the migrants if you like but Mrs Doyle or people of like mind will need to find other ways of keeping warm than seeking state handouts.”
What are you on about?
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 10:37 PMNot happy at all about the border checks. Seems to go completely against the whole spirit of the peace process. What’s the point of building a spanking new motorway between Dublin and Belfast if the traffic is to be backed up at the border?
Last time I was stopped the Garda did check everyone on the bus, not just the “foreign looking” people. But 9 times out of 10 they’ll make a beeline for the non-whites and only check out them.
As for the Polish girl - well this is the EU, and if a strong North Antrim accent is enough to get waved by then a strong Warsaw or Kracow accent should be equally as good!
Besides, practically speaking, what happens to the people they drag off the bus - I presume they just run them back up to Newry? So what’s to stop them finding another way down?
Its absolutely useless in practical terms - my guess is that the policy has been put in place just to appease the quasi-racism against immigrants prevalent among a portion of the population on both sides of the border.
As a dual citizen I feel it devalues the meaning of my Irish citizenship to be stopped and asked for “your papers please” like this. I’ve never experienced any such hassle when returning to the UK on the bus up from Dublin.
Shame on Bertie. Some republican he is!
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 10:48 PM“There is something truly intolerant in NI and it seems based on a myopia that extends 6 counties wide and probably much further.”
Thats a very sweeping statement there. And its not particulary true. An East Belfast Minister fought for and stopped the immigration of a Nigerian mother and her children, she was taken from her home and brought to Yarlwood in England. But the deportation has been put on hold now. There have been other incidents of this nature, to say that NI is racist-is to protray your own view and not actually the reality.
Yes there has been abuse of foreign workers, but that is not something defined by NI, it’s happening world over, and to put the view that peoples fears, whether in the republic or the north over scarce resources as thinly veiled racism is wrong. They aren’t racist, they are concerned - about their childrens education, about jobs for themselves and a whole range of other issues.
There must be enough of a concern in the south for them to look at the border and introduce it again. For programmes like RTE prime time to produce the material they did. Thats not racism, thats concern, and people must feel its legitimate concern, for their families and their welfare. Remember they live in the real world not a socialist utopia.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 10:53 PMOzy,
This attitude was a direct result of the little Irelander attitude of our thankfully former Minister McDowell. What a pity his racist influence wasn’t dumped in the same way he was.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 10:57 PMMrs Doyle,
There is a generally shared experience on most occasions of people being singled out by ethnic appearance. That is racism. You have border controls applied to all or you have racism. Irish and British citizens can be white, black, chinese and everything else. An Garda singling people out by look is abhorrent regardless of how ‘concerned’ some people might get. ‘Concern’ is no excuse for treating people as 2nd class.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 11:03 PMAnd I agree that border controls should be applied to all. But the source of the problem lies with immigration and numbers, not the colour of ones skin or . I have to produce an ID going to England, I’d gladly produce it going to Dublin, in order to gain some security over the borders, and about who is coming and going. Illegals are a problem, background checking is a problem, problems with asylum in both durisdictions, and problems with so many dependent on crumbling infrastructures and scarce resources. Yes I agree many are racist, but not all. Neither is abuse a sole problem of NI. Thats happened world over.
I’d be the first against profiling if that is what is happening. But profiling and abuse are only part of a complex problem and to tag it all as racist is plain wrong.
Posted by on Dec 28, 2007 @ 11:13 PMMrs Doyle – you’ll not be surprised when I tell you that I could hardly disagree with you more. You make your points calmly and sensibly but they lack evidence of any sort – other than what the media think might improve their ratings/sales.
So, there’s a school for immigrants. Jesus, Mary and Joseph – they’d be playing blue murder if the same children were put straight in to primary/national schools when the children didn’t speak English fluently.
For some – any state effort to respond to immigration is wrong. 30,000 human beings entered NI last year – 5,500 of them from Poland (the largest single group outside of the UK and Ireland). These people enter jobs and work for a living.
If 6 months later some call their family over – fair enough. Perhaps some of their children may be of an age that would make transition to our education system a problem and so the state has provided support for that. The state then finds itself accused by racists (xenophobes) of misplacing its resources.
If you want to cover your xenophobia by claiming economics then answer me this – how much did it cost for the Irish child to be born, how much did it cost to bring it to school age and then measure those figures against how much it costs to teach a young child English. Then when you’re done, count up your savings to provide for your old age – the welfare system requires people to pay in more than they take out. NI’s demography and economic activity (or the lack of it) will ensure that a economic balance of accounts arises.
I have no time for this thinly veiled racism. In my experience it is most often put by those already state dependent who are determined to remain so. It may be my duty to pay for idleness – but I don’t like it and welcome all people from foreign shores who arrive with a view to earning a living – rather than those ‘mother-born-Irish’ some of whom believe life owes them a living.
I wonder where they got that idea? I got mine from being an emigrant who worked abroad in many countries. I worked abroad when there were no jobs in Ireland and the “26 counties” wouldn’t offer me a job because I couldn’t speak Irish. When I walk through Belfast or Dublin now I see more ad’s in windows offering employment (that I’d have taken) than were available nationally in the 80’s.
Dress up your xenophobia in “commerce” if you wish. I remember similar views when working in Stuttgart when some Germans there looked down their noses at the Irish as “better than having the Turks”. Thankfully, the vast majority of Germans didn’t think similarly – nor did the Brazilians, nor did the Zambians, nor did the British – and I’m sure, nor do the Irish.
Posted by on Dec 29, 2007 @ 01:30 AMRubicon
*The legal migrants entering NI are an asset without whom; NI’s dependents (growing in number each year) will either be told “sorry – no heart op for you”, or, “sorry – no DLA for you”, or, “we’d give your kid a place but the school needs the fees and you can’t pay ‘em. Sorry – do please move on …”. The list could be very long for the demands made by NI on the public purse.*
Ah, the old “we need immigrants to sustain our welfare state” myth, very appealing but falls flat on its face when it is pointed out that immigrants also get old, have children that need to go to school and often make use of the health service.
So what to do? Keep bringing in more and more immigrants until the population of the UK reaches 100 million (it’s already unofficially estimated at 70 million)?
Or reform the ludicrous social welfare system to get the millions of “economically inactive” natives back to work in a full employment economy and also reform the horrifically mismanaged health service and pension systems, oh and encourage the natives to start having babies again to fund their own old age instead of importing babies from the third world to do it for them.
Just a thought.
One other thing do the Gards check the 9.30 am Lough Swilly Bus from Carndonagh to Derry, who knows it could be a hotbed of people trafficking.
Posted by on Dec 29, 2007 @ 03:01 AMI am a Belfast born Australian and the Gards asked everyone for ID on a recent bus trip down to Dublin.
I produced my Australian drivers ID and didn’t tell him i was an Irish citizen and the cop asked “where is your passport?” I replied in my aussie accent “up the road in my granny’s house”. This was accepted without fuss but with the remark “you need your passport as its a different country and all down here...” And there I was thinking we were all on the one road.
Posted by on Dec 29, 2007 @ 03:25 AMSurprised that no-one has mentioned the recent che king of negotiators ampaign against Southern shoppers going North by the Southern Chambers of Commerce. They have to be seen as doing something and no-one knows that all politics is local better than Fianna Fail.
As for Berte’s comments? He’s the king of negotiators and this made be part of the process. If talks break down then Fianna Fail certainly won’t want to take the blame. Far better to broadcast one’s good intentions outside while talking tough inside.
Posted by on Dec 29, 2007 @ 05:04 AMRubicon, your argument - if one could call it that - appears to be lacking in evidence, and since Harry Flashman has already pointed out the other side to it, I’ll only put a few more points to you.
Calling opponents of your argument racist - has lost it’s value. The British government is about to allow failed asylum seekers to stay because they have been in the country that long. This amounts to about a quarter of a million people. Do they or you know how many are economically active? How many of them are going to need state services? The NHS? Education and housing? If you say you are compelled to pay for economic idleness - how many of these people are your tax pounds funding?
Are there jobs natives won’t do - you bet. Why? Because it doesn’t make economic sense for them to get off their butts and provide for their families. Do you think perhaps one reason for that could be that wages have been kept down due to cheap imported labour? Or has it absolutely no bearing on it? What do you think, in your experience, since that seems to be the only evidence you’re working on.“So, there’s a school for immigrants. Jesus, Mary and Joseph – they’d be playing blue murder if the same children were put straight in to primary/national schools when the children didn’t speak English fluently.”
But that is exactly what is happening - and yes I don’t live in Dublin and my evidence is based on Primetime, but I didn’t see an outcry to claim what the programme produced was wrong. Did you? Why can’t the children of what you call Irish born mothers access that school for immigrants for their children too. Or is discrimination ok in your book if it is against the host population? Discrimination is discrimination no matter who its against.
“I have no time for this thinly veiled racism. In my experience it is most often put by those already state dependent who are determined to remain so.”
And therein lies your argument. Anyone who disagrees with your opinion is either racist or dependent on benefits. If you think that is the case you need to widen your experience - it’s usually the right of centre who disagree with immigration rather than the left, and those who have opinions that are right of centre are usually not state dependant.
Posted by on Dec 29, 2007 @ 08:46 AMWhat is the legal position of these checkpoints? I don’t know but I’d be surprised if the law said Irish citizens had to produce id to the Gardai while in Ireland, is it part of the Emergency Powers?
Surely there is a whopping lawsuit waiting to be won by the first Irish citizen with the ‘wrong’ colour of skin or ‘wrong’ accent being taken off a bus and detained because he doesn’t happen to be carrying an Irish passport while travelling in Ireland.
Posted by on Dec 29, 2007 @ 10:09 AMSo Harry & Mrs Doyle - your policy response is to get Irish citizens to start breeding while at the same time criticizing the demographic deficit argument? Apart from being contradictory - how do you suggest the government go about this “home grown breeding policy”?
Harry - your assumption that correcting the age imbalance inevitably leads to ever increasing immigration is simply wrong. The problem is in achieving a stable population that can provide for its dependents. The greatest part of this dependency is through an increasing aging population. Domestic birth deficits of the past can’t be rectified retrospectively no matter how successful your ‘breeding policy’ might be.
Of NI’s 9,000+ net migrants (’05-’06) almost 90% were under the age of 35. You may find the following interesting evidence of the very high number of worker registrations occurring among the young immigrants entering NI.
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/population/migration/NI_Migration_Report(2006).pdf
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/population/migration/Net_Mig0506.xls
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/archive/demography/population/migration/In_Mig0506.xlsAs for immigrants lowering wages - the national minimum wage is set centrally and is not the product of a free market where Irish/UK born are out-bid by immigrants. Pressure on government to raise the minimum wage level would require attention to a number of important matters - among them; inflation and the economics of lowering dependency and eliminating the poverty trap. Immigration would hardly feature in such a debate.
The school you refer to Mrs Doyle I’m assuming is the one created as a result of 50 children being refused school places in Balbriggan - all 50 of them turned out to be black. This arose due to the mass of school provision being done by Catholic schools who gave applicants who were Catholic preference. So - yes - discrimination has something to do with the issue but its not quite as you describe is it?
Posted by on Dec 29, 2007 @ 01:16 PMI’d like to stop contributions from Immigrants like this
Posted by on Dec 29, 2007 @ 01:35 PM
