{"id":190602,"date":"2025-11-20T11:02:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/190602\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T11:02:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:02:23","slug":"perrins-spare-us-the-ponderings-of-nimble-jim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/190602\/","title":{"rendered":"PERRINS: Spare us the ponderings of Nimble Jim"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m confused. Did Ireland fight an insurgency against the British, resulting in the Free State and then the Republic of Ireland in 1948? Am I wrong that such a thing as the Dail exists where, lo and behold, the Republic can make its own laws, subject to EU law?<\/strong> If this is the case, and I\u2019m pretty sure that it is, why do we have to wait until the British announce a series of serious changes to their immigration laws before we can change ours?<\/p>\n

On Monday Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan (who you will remember from previous episodes\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>) said that Ireland would remain \u2018nimble\u2019 in the face of the British changing immigration law. Nimble Jim\u2026 he\u2019s Angelina Ballerina is Big Jim.<\/p>\n

The Minister for Justice is \u2018committed to ensuring asylum seekers do not view Ireland more favourably than the United Kingdom by those seeking to claim asylum.\u2019 Is that so? To do that you have to make Ireland look unattractive to asylum seekers, which is the exact opposite to what this government has been doing until now.<\/p>\n

This has come about because yesterday the British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP stood up in the House of Commons (that\u2019s the one we escaped from) and proposed some serious changes to the British Immigration Gravy Train. You can read about those proposed changes\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Under the proposed British changes, newly arrived asylum seekers will no longer qualify for an indefinite right to stay, while existing cases will be reviewed after 2\u00bd years and people will be sent back to their countries, if those countries are then deemed safe.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice said Jim O\u2019Callaghan will \u201cclosely monitor\u201d the proposed changes to the UK\u2019s asylum practices and \u201cwill respond to those proposals having considered them fully and discussed them with Government colleagues.\u201d Great stuff there Minister. Do go on.<\/p>\n

Minister O\u2019Callaghan TD, \u201cWhat it does indicate is that we need to be nimble in Ireland, as we may need to change our laws and our provisions as well to respond to any changes that have taken place in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s interesting. A few things here. First the immigration announcement made by the British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP are just that \u2013 proposals. They are tough but they have a long way to go before they become in law. I set out on my Substack why I think they will fail to get through the House of Commons. Even if they do, they are still subject to judicial review afterwards.<\/p>\n

Secondly what Minister O\u2019Callaghan has admitted is that asylum seekers forum shop. Any asylum seeker that arrives in the UK or Ireland is by virtue of geography and the fact they are both flipping islands have usually passed through multiple safe countries to arrive in either UK or Ireland. It was the law that you must claim asylum in the first safe country you arrive in, but that never\u00a0was imposed either here or in the UK. Britain will actually\u00a0fly<\/a>\u00a0you in on RAF planes if you are from Afghanistan and the Royal Navy escorts you from France. And you wonder why they are angry.<\/p>\n

Irish and British taxpayers were told to just accept the fact that asylum seekers have passed through Spain and France or Germany and whatever and just pitched up in the UK or Ireland. No, they have already passed through multiple safe countries, why are you here? If you are an asylum seeker and not an economic migrant it is the safety you seek. Therefore why have you risked your safety by leaving the safe country you were in to get to the UK or Ireland.\u00a0Maybe it was a bit more than safety<\/strong>, that you seek.\u00a0 It\u2019s understandable but it is not what the politicians tell us.<\/p>\n

Third, Ireland is signed up to the EU Migration Pact which will seriously hinder Big Jim.<\/p>\n

But asylum seekers do view Ireland as attractive because Irish politicians on the left and the right are intent on proclaiming that everyone from Sudan to Afghanistan deserves the great\u00a0C\u00e9ad M\u00edle F\u00e1ilte\u00a0and accommodation and benefits that come with it. This is why we can expect asylum seekers to keep coming, especially if Europe and the UK start to get tougher.<\/p>\n

What has nibble Jim in mind? \u201cThe Coalition is considering longer wait times for citizenship for those with refugee status and tighter rules on family reunification for migrants.\u201d There is also consideration to increase the time period for naturalisation from 3 to 5 years and stricter criteria for family reunification.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsideration.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0We wait with baited breath. This is also a difference between the UK and Ireland.<\/p>\n

In Britain they make actual announcements followed by attempts to bring in the necessary laws to the House of Commons. Whereas in Ireland there are various tough talking statements made at a press conference, inter \u2013 governmental conferences, maybe on the telly box and then the Minister hops on a plane and can be found at some international conference.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where they really like to be \u2013 somewhere far away talking about climate change or Israel or something. Well I\u2019ve got news for you.\u00a0Tough talking statements and kite flying do not make laws.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you know what country did get tough on the laws? Denmark. Denmark has a very similar population to Ireland.<\/p>\n

Denmark \u00a0has a population of 6 million. In 2025 from Jan to September there were only 1490 applications for asylum. Last year Denmark granted asylum in only 860 cases. 860! That needs to said again, only 860 people in Denmark in 2024 were granted asylum. 860 is a rounding error when it comes to the Republic\u2019s numbers.<\/p>\n

The population of the Republic is 5.4 million.<\/p>\n

In 2024, 18,555 people claimed international protection in Ireland. In 2023, 13,000 people claimed international protection in Ireland. And In 2022, 13,000 people claimed international protection which does seem a bit odd to me but there we are.<\/p>\n

In 2024 there were 2,403 deportation orders signed in Ireland. Signed. Do you know how many deportations were actually carried out of that 2,403 in 2024? 134.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternational protection\u2019 is such an Orwellian term. It is not international protection that is granted, but protection and accommodation granted by the Irish taxpayer. There is nothing \u2018international\u2019 about it.<\/p>\n

Nimble Jim is also getting a bit worked up about the old Common Travel Area and that over 80% of people claiming asylum in the Republic are reaching Dublin from Northern Ireland. The\u00a0Minister says that \u2018asylum seekers should not view Ireland more favourably than the UK.\u2019 That\u2019s them told.<\/p>\n

Big Jim understands that if asylum seekers that are in Britain wake up in a hostile environment they can easily Ryanair their way to Belfast then hop over the non \u2013 border, border. If they want to do that, they can. There is no way the Irish government is going to set up border control and start checking passports at Newry or in Belfast Grand Central Station.<\/p>\n

Therefore in order to deter asylum seekers you might want to rethink the old\u00a0C\u00e9ad M\u00edle F\u00e1ilte.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m confused. Did Ireland fight an insurgency against the British, resulting in the Free State and then the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,55,13,14,6,56,26735,11,12,15,16,5,106459,7,8,1294,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-190602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-deportations","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-jim-ocallaghan","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-shabana-mahmood","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-world","26":"tag-world-news","27":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115581691266052709","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}