Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan. Photo: PA
The long-anticipated tightening of our immigration regime has been introduced. In the interests of “social cohesion”, Tánaiste Simon Harris said that, among other key changes, asylum-seekers would be making a contribution to state accommodation costs.
The logic is that an economy with finite resources can only support a finite population. A system that is “grounded in common sense and is rules-based” was essential. Allowing working international protection applicants to receive free accommodation “simply defies common sense” and “defies fairness”, Mr Harris said. If it doesn’t end, it allows a “vacuum to develop”, which could be filled with far-right populists, he added.
