Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Telling ChoicesLast weekend, Spanish newspaper El Pais ran a long feature in its Sunday magazine, listing the 100 personalities of the year. Each profile was itself written by a public figure. Spanish prime minister José Luis Zapatero wrote about Colombian politician and freed hostage Ingrid Betancourt. Opposition leader Mariano Rajoy chose footballer David Villa.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:50 PM | link |
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Monday, November 03, 2008
Spreading the wealth around"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor... The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess... It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." - Adam Smith
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:31 PM | link |
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Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Crisis in quotes"If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down." - President Bush
"As a friend said last night, we’ve become a banana republic with nukes" - Paul Krugman
"Gonna be an interesting afternoon for Western civilization" - Daniel Drezner
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:50 PM | link |
The ingenuity of the market
It's more than a year old, but it's just as funny today.
"I'd buy anything if it said 'enhanced'".
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:20 AM |
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Monday, September 08, 2008
How do you spell xenophobia?
I've noticed anti-immigration graffiti cropping up in my area recently. The spelling says it all.
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posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:17 PM | link |
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Why revive one blog......when you can revive two. More blogging going on here.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 10:32 AM | link |
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Thursday, August 21, 2008
Myers and NigeriansHas anyone ever noticed that when someone says that it's time for an honest and open debate about immigration, that is invariably the last thing you get? The latest commentator to make such a call is the Irish Independent’s Kevin Myers, who last week got a bit exercised about the number of Nigerians who are claiming rent allowance.
According to Myers, 3,024 Nigerians, or 18.6 per cent of the total Irish population of 16,300 are now claiming rent allowance. This figure is far higher than the number of British (2.7 per cent), Poles (1.5 per cent) and Lithuanians (3 per cent). Myers asks:
Why are so many people, from a country to which we have no moral or legal or historical obligations, living off this state? Why are they being allowed through immigration, if they have no jobs to go to? Why are they choosing to come to Ireland, when 20 countries or more lie between their homeland and ourselves? And finally, and perhaps most important of all, why is no one else asking why?His piece has prompted a good deal of comment online, much of it along predictable lines. There’s a thread of 15 pages and counting on Politics.ie and it’s up to 12 pages at Boards.ie. Myers also garnered some supportive letters to the editor, such as this missive from one Frank Magee in Dublin. Although it was probably not Magee’s intention, it also sheds some light on facts that Myers is either unaware of or chose to ignore:
Stated Government policy and Irish immigration law prohibits the payment of welfare benefits to non-EU nationals, other than those granted refugee status. That, in effect, means the maximum number of Nigerians eligible to claim welfare benefits here is 150.IBC/05 was not an amnesty, at least not as Magee wants us to believe. IBC stands for Irish Born Child. The people given leave to remain under the scheme had children born here. This leave is subject to renewal every three years. Until the citizenship referendum in 2004, the government couldn't deport Irish citizens. Nor could they realistically deport their parents.
A massive number of Nigerians have immigrated illegally to Ireland. The previous Minister for Justice stated that no amnesty was to be granted to these people, yet a scheme was designed to allow them remain in Ireland called the IBC/05 scheme.
According to this parliamentary question answered by former justice minister Michael McDowell, a total of 16,984 applicants were granted permission to remain in the State. No breakdown of nationalities appears to be available but, given the numbers of Nigerians entering Ireland in recent years, it is probably fair to assume that a decent proportion of these applications came from that country.
With a few exceptions, those with leave to remain have the same rights as someone granted refugee status, including the right to claim welfare. To sum up, there are a few thousand Nigerians in Ireland who haven’t been granted asylum but are legally entitled to live here and receive welfare benefits.
Are these people exploiting a loophole in immigration law then to live off the Irish state, as Myers and his supporters might presume? The origin of the figures used by Myers lies in a press release issued by Labour Party TD Joan Burton recently. The figures were originally reported in the Independent by Michael Brennan, ten days before the Myers piece appeared. According to Brennan, immigrants "account for 39 per cent of the 63,000 people on the means-tested scheme, which costs a total of €390m annually and is generally open only to those who are unemployed".
Breaking down the figures reveals that the average person on rent allowance receives €6,190 annually, or €515 a month, which is well short of the average rent on most properties. In other words, most people are only receiving part of their rent and not the "full state-subsidy for rental accommodation" as Myers would have it.
Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that every Nigerian receiving rent allowance is necessarily unemployed. When issuing the figures, Burton expressed concern that "the scheme ran the risk of becoming a 'poverty trap' because most of those on it would lose their benefit if they went back to work". However, as Brennan reported:
However, the Department of Social Affairs defended its operation of the scheme. A spokeswoman pointed out that significant changes were made last year to allow people to receive more wages without losing out on the allowance.Specifically, from June 5 2007, those coming from unemployment may still qualify for rent allowance if they are accepted as being in need of accommodation under the Rental Accommodation Scheme by their local housing authority and have been unemployed or not in full-time employment for at least twelve months before they start to work. If they still qualify for rent allowance, the amount they receive may be reduced depending on the level of their wages.
To try and further reinforce his point, Myers points out 2006 census figures that indicate that of the total 16,300 Nigerian population, only 38 per cent participate in the labour force:
Maybe this is because so many are too old for work? Not so. There are almost no Nigerians over 50. Their average age is 26.6, with some 10,000 between the ages of 25 and 44. Yes, there are a large number of Nigerian children (3,845 under fifteen), but that figure of 38pc at work is a percentage of the over-15s only. The equivalent working proportions are: Poles, 84pc; Lithuanians, 82pc; and Latvians 82pc. On the other hand, the figures for rental-subsidy (remember: Nigerians 18.6pc) are Poles, 1.5pc; Lithuanians, 3pc; and Latvians, 4.3pc.To extrapolate from the figures, there are 7,700 Nigerians in Ireland who aren’t working. Of course, by comparing labour force participation with Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians, Myers isn’t comparing like with like. The latter three are EU member states, whose citizens can work from the minute they got off the plane. The figures are absolutely meaningless until you factor in the number of Nigerians who legally cannot work here because they are tied up in the asylum application and appeals system. Given that the number of asylum applications numbered in the thousands for the past few years and that a goodly proportion are reportedly from Nigerian, it is probably fair to assume that a lot of these 7,700 simply can’t participate in the labour force.
In short, if Myers had bothered to look a little further he would have found out that there are large number of Nigerians who haven’t been granted asylum, but are legally entitled to remain in the state and claim rent allowance. Furthermore, the mere receipt of rent allowance does not mean that they are not working and simply ”living off this state”. He concludes by saying:
For the real issue is not the number of Nigerians living here, nor even the absurd and unacceptable dependency of so many of them on this State. No, it is the abject refusal of the Irish people, both through the media and the Dail, to have an open debate about the biggest issue facing this country.Perhaps old age is affecting his memory, but there was a debate on this issue in 2004 with the Citizenship Referendum and people opted to close off one of the chief routes to allow Nigerians to remain in the state. This begs the question of why Myers wants to restage this issue and drum up hostility to those who remain here from a time before the law was changed?
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posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:39 PM | link |
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Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Funny moneyThis is kind of funny. A Spanish shopkeeper has discovered a euro coin in his till on which mischevous engraver had transformed the image of the King of Spain into Homer Simpson:
Jose Martinez was counting the cash in his till in the city of Aviles, northern Spain, when he came across the coin where Homer's bald head, big eyes and big nose had replaced the serious features of King.King Juan Carlos was back in the news recently when he kissed and made up with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. The king, who usually does nothing more controversial than photoshop family pictures on his Christmas cards, famously lost his temper last year with the irascible Venezuelan leader, who had kept interupting Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero at a summit with South American leaders. ¿Por qué no te callas? (why don't you shut up) instantly became a catchphrase in Spain and t-shirts bearing the slogan started appearing in shops.
Credit: Zugaldia (CC License)
The pair reconciled at another summit meeting last month and the King went as far as to give Chavez one of the offending t-shirts.
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posted by Dick O'Brien at 11:10 AM | link |
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