Irish Examiner view: Irish people’s views on immigration

It is imperative that Government demonstrates it can manage immigration and asylum processes fairly and competently

'There is a legitimate public interest in knowing how many people are arriving into the country, where they are coming from, where they are being accommodated, and how applications are being processed.' File picture

Rural Ireland’s views on immigration, as indicated in Monday's Irish Examiner/Ipsos B&A survey, should make interesting, if not entirely comforting, reading for the Government parties.

On one hand, six out of 10 people believe immigration is good for the economy, and on the other, fewer than one in four believe the Government is doing a good job controlling the number of asylum seekers coming to Ireland. These are not mutually exclusive viewpoints. A person can recognise the contribution made by foreign doctors, nurses, carers, and engineers, while also believing that the asylum system is under too much pressure and that the State has lost control over the number of people arriving.

The survey makes that distinction particularly clear. There is strong support (77%) for the Government’s International Protection Act, which will introduce tougher migration and asylum rules. An overwhelming 89% support the deportation of foreign nationals who are convicted of a crime. At the same time, 54% agree that people who come here from other countries generally contribute positively to Irish society, more than double the proportion who disagree.

The findings suggest that, in general, people are not taking an indiscriminately hostile view of immigration. Rather, they are making distinctions between those who come to Ireland to work and contribute to the economy, and those who arrive seeking international protection and may depend on the State, and consequently the taxpayer, for an uncertain period while their applications are processed. It is this latter dimension that presents the Government with a political and social minefield.

There is a legitimate public interest in knowing how many people are arriving into the country, where they are coming from, where they are being accommodated, and how applications are being processed. Taxpayers are entitled to expect an asylum system that is efficient, fair, and capable of timely decisions on who is entitled to protection and who is not. The expectation that the International Protection Act will provide such a system may explain the strong support for it in the survey.

The Government must remain acutely conscious of how legitimate frustration about an inadequate asylum system and stretched resources can easily develop into anti-immigrant sentiment.

That is why it is imperative that this Government demonstrates that it can manage immigration and asylum processes fairly and competently. If it does so, it will be better placed to preserve public support for immigration in all its forms, and to ensure that Ireland remains a welcoming country.

Tech beyond human control

When rival technology leaders call for a slowdown in the development of AI, it is time to take notice.

Recent warnings from within the technology sector of the destructive potential of AI are deeply troubling. The fact, as reported in the Irish Examiner , that Elon Musk and Sam Altman — who lead rival AI developers — agree with another AI giant, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, that the brakes must be applied to the ‘reckless’ development of AI, makes the need for action all the more urgent.

Amodei accompanied his call for AI companies to slow the rate at which they are advancing model capabilities with a warning: Within six to 12 months, AI agents “could be capable of taking over the entire internet”. Predictably, AI-related stocks fell sharply yesterday, but the financial hit sustained by investors should be the least of our worries.

Open AI, the makers of ChaptGPT, revealed at a computer security conference last month that staff had repeatedly lost control of its AI models in tests earlier this year. Asked questions designed to test their cybersecurity capabilities, a group of AI models began to collude with each other to cheat and, unbeknownst to staff, set up a secret message board where they swapped notes and ideas.

The rogue models were able to access the internet, and, even after staff discovered the ‘escape’ and cleaned up the compromised system, the models staged another undetected breakout and managed to hack into another AI firm’s network.

The incident was just one of a series of revelations about AI models apparently outwitting their human ‘controllers’ and using their hacking skills to break into other companies’ networks. The calls for restraint are now coming from inside the industry against a backdrop of growing demands by some US politicians for regulation, as well as threats of legal action in response to OpenAI’s incident.

There is not much we can do on this side of the Atlantic to address the problem, but it should be obvious that, if the companies developing these systems cannot guarantee that they remain under human control, politicians in the US must be persuaded to impose the regulations and oversight they have so far been reluctant to provide.

Shingles vaccine a practical measure

News that health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill is seeking funding for a shingles vaccination programme in the forthcoming budget is welcome.

Shingles is a painful and potentially debilitating illness that affects around 10,000 people in Ireland each year, two thirds of them aged over 50. While an effective vaccine was authorised here in 2022, cost remains a significant barrier. Those who want to protect themselves face a bill of about €480 from their pharmacist or GP. The vaccine is currently not covered by the medical card or the drug payment scheme.

In 2024, Hiqa decided against adding shingles vaccination to the routine schedule for adults aged 65 and older, concluding that it was not cost-effective at vaccine prices at that time.

There have since been renewed calls for the vaccination to be offered to vulnerable groups, alongside a growing body of evidence that the shingles vaccine may lower the risk of dementia, stroke, and heart attack. The case for action is therefore stronger than it was.

The provision of funding to make the vaccine available to the most vulnerable would be a welcome and practical investment in prevention.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here