'Ireland is facing difficult choices dealing with the migration crisis- is a hard border the answer?' - Kevin Foster
'Protests against migrant housing plans are common across Ireland,' explains the former Conservative MP
UK Parliament/ Getty
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If a hard border is placed across the island of Ireland, it will be the Irish Government which does it.
Some will say this is nonsense, the EU and Irish Government were constantly demanding more concessions and guarantees during Brexit negotiations to “prevent a hard border in Ireland”, appearing jointly wedded to free movement across Ireland.
Yet it was nothing more than an argument of convenience for the EU, deployed to push the UK towards staying in the EU Single Market and Customs Union.
When self-interest over Covid vaccines required a different approach, the EU was quick enough to try and close the Irish Border.
Ireland, a country whose identity has been defined by emigration, is facing a crisis provoked by immigration.
Furious demonstrations have occurred across Ireland against new migrant camps and accommodation since 2022, a year which saw 65,000 refugees arrive in Southern Ireland.
2022 was also the year much of the UK media quickly lauded the Irish Government for abandoning visa requirements for Ukrainians, whereas our security advice was clear the UK’s visa requirement should remain.
Ireland opening the door, with no realistic plan for accommodating those who arrived (such as the UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme), produced inevitable results in terms of overwhelming housing services which were already under pressure.
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The reaction is predictable and strong, with protests now common across Ireland against such moves. Combine this with the need to deal with the tent cities springing up in Dublin, few will now suggest “céad míle fáilte” (a hundred thousand welcomes) should be the response to those who have left other safe European Countries to apply for asylum in Ireland.
Ireland will need to confront the difficult choices about how to deal with the migration crisis. It is still attached to the EU’s Free Movement rules, which can see large extended families move across Europe.
It might not be in the EU’s Schengen Zone but is inevitably locked into many of the EU’s wider approaches to migration. Like the UK, Ireland is also faced with the question of where to send those who cannot be returned to their home country or the safe country they left to head there.
Communities faced with real pressure on public services and local housing will look for political movements prepared to deliver an alternative, perhaps even by deploying a hard land border, rather than simply be lectured about past Irish emigration from a metropolitan elite which does not face the choices or daily struggles they do.