80% want immigration restrictions: poll

dublin | miscellaneous | other press Sunday May 01, 2005 15:21 by paul sherlock p_sherlock at yahoo dot com

This is from the RTE web site

A new opinion poll indicates that eight out of ten Irish people want restrictions on the number of foreigners allowed to live here.

The IMS survey for the Sunday Tribune also found that two-thirds of respondents do not have any non-Irish friends.

Almost 80% of the respondents agreed with the statement that it is good that children in Ireland today are growing up in a multicultural society.

But the same number said the Government should restrict the number of foreigners allowed into the country.

The majority of people said the Minister for Justice was right to reverse the deportation order made against Nigerian student Olukunle Elunkanlo.

Two thirds of the people asked did not have any non-national friends, but only 3 out of 10 said they would not want their son or daughter to marry a foreigner.

There are many contradictions in Irish attitudes to multiculturalism in this survey: more than half agreed that it was good to have non-nationals living in their community, but 43% said they would reconsider buying a house if they knew a lot of foreign people were living in the area.

77% of respondents agreed that Irish people living illegally in the US should be allowed to legally stay there, but there is less support, 66%, for allowing non nationals waiting for decisions on their Irish residence applications to stay in Ireland.