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Notes -
Ireland
The arson attacks have died down (barring one seemingly apolitical attempt to burn down 5 shops in one day in Cork city) and the government has hardened their attitude somewhat towards the abuses of the asylum system, sending one man to prison and arresting dozens of others for showing up at Dublin airport without a passport and promising to resume deportations of failed asylum seekers on chartered flights (the covid response involved putting a moratorium on deportations).
I'm a bit late with this news but it turns out the man charged with setting fire to a Luas tram during the Dublin riot is a member of the National Party, so there is some evidence to the claims that far-right agitators are taking advantage of these protests to commit crimes. Stirring up violence is about all the National Party seems capable of, right now there are two self-proclaimed leaders of the party since Justin Barrett was ousted as party leader (something he denies) after a controversy over a large amount of stolen gold and a police investigation into who actually owns it.
Another slightly out of date headline is that the number of asylum seekers without state provided accommodation broke the 1,000 figure last month, but given the rate of increase it is likely still higher today:
Many of these asylum seekers have pitched tents outside the International Protection Office and are protesting the breach of their human rights given the sometimes freezing temperatures and constant rain. It has been the case for a while now that if you show up in Ireland claiming asylum that you will be sleeping on the street, but that doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention that today Ireland is holding its fifth constitutional referendum in less than a decade. The proposal involves two amendments.
The first proposed amendment concerns two clauses defining the family. Currently, family is defined as a natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, based on the legal institution of marriage. The consitution pledges to protect the institution of marriage (on which families are based) from attack. The proposed wording will amend this so that families can be based on marriage or "other durable relationships".
The second proposed amendment concerns two clauses regarding the role of women in Irish society. As it stands, in the constitution acknowledges the contribution women make to the state within the home, and hence promises that the state shall "endeavour" to ensure that women are not obliged by economic necessity to labour and hence neglect their duties (These clauses have been widely strawmanned and misrepresented as the constitution asserting that "women's place is in the home", including by no less than government ministers.) The proposal is to replace these with a clause reading "The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.”
The government are touting the proposal as feminist (no coincidence that the referendum is being held on International Women's Day) and all of the major political parties are backing it. Various NGOs are in favour, on the grounds that unmarried parents ought to be legally recognised as just as legitimate in the eyes of the law as married parents (I must confess I've never really understood why, if you already have children and a mortgage together, it's apparently such an ordeal to spend an afternoon walking down to city hall and signing a marriage license, but whatever).
Traditional feminists are worried that the government are washing their hands of any commitment to provide financial support to mothers who don't work, particularly single mothers (of note is how the proposed amendment ties into our Taoiseach's* open admission that he doesn't think it's the state's responsibility to provide for people who are unable to provide for themselves). At least one article I read made hay of the fact that the proposed wording mentions only that the government shall strive to support families in the provision of care (i.e. "we'll try to help out, but no promises"), although I'll note that the wording as it currently stands similarly states that the government shall endeavour to ensure that women don't have to neglect their duties in the home by reasons of economic necessity. One could argue that this is a much of a muchness. Gender-critical groups are very suspicious of the government's desire to remove the words "woman" and "mother" from the constitution. Social conservatives are concerned that acknowledging that families can be based on "durable relationships" might result in legal recognition of polycules. Anti-immigration activists argue that a Yes vote will result in increased immigration from overseas (I confess I don't quite get the reasoning on this last point and it seems like a knowing attempt to sow FUD by piggybacking on anti-immigration sentiment).
*Prime minister
I didn’t mention it because I couldn’t have done it justice like you have!
It looks like both proposed amendments have failed to pass, but I won’t be surprised if they try again in a few years.
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Wait, why does a political party just have gold bars in a vault? Collateral for finances?
Also, was the insufficient housing an issue before the arsons, or is it currently a direct result of such?
The gold is a mystery to me. Apparently it was there in case of a collapse in fiat currency.
Accommodation has been expensive and in short supply for years but the ‘making it to Ireland be homeless’ thing is new, we took in a lot of Ukrainian refugees and the normal asylum seeker numbers increased a lot too following this.
As for the arsons, unless there’s a deterrent effect in play I doubt they’ve changed things much. I doubt many people have been deterred, there’s a lot of money to be made from hosting asylum seekers and insurance still pays out in cases of arson. Iirc the homelessness thing was picking up steam before the arson became common (there have been arson attacks going back years ago but it picked up a lot in the past few months).
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