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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   1347 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 4, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Ireland

Another fire at a building (believed to be) earmarked for asylum accomodation. A vacant pub in Dublin which was also the site of anti-migrant protests last year was set alight during the night, but the government and homeless charities are saying that it was ultimately going to be used for homeless families and not asylum seeker accomodation.

An angry crowd of masked men was out at a building in Finglas, Dublin last night so I guess that's the next probable target.

the government and homeless charities are saying that it was ultimately going to be used for homeless families and not asylum seeker accomodation.

Surely these are substantially overlapping groups? In any case, the people that don't want "asylum seekers" (what an incredibly dishonest euphemism this is) in their neighborhoods probably aren't all that excited about moving bums in either, regardless of whether they're Travellers or from parts unknown.

Surely these are substantially overlapping groups?

I'm not sure actually. The definition of 'homelessness' is fairly expansive in Ireland. These numbers are from the start of last year:Just under 30% of homeless are children, around half are single adults, 61% of them are Irish and only 17% were from outside the European Economic Area. There's nearly 12,000 people in emergency accomodation being counted as homeless while the rough sleeper count in Dublin is at something like 150.

They probably weren't going to be majority non-European single men, maybe they'd be Roma or Irish gypsies, but it seems like normal but poor Irish families is a very plausible scenario too. I'll have to look into whether homeless families in particular is an actual category for who gets allowed into these types of places or whether homeless families are just the most sympathetic group to bring up in the news.

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