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On the afternoon of September 11 2001 the Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach), Bertie Ahern ordered the ‘heads of the security services of key government departments’ to undertake a complete re-evaluation of measures to protect the state from attack. Hence, underway within hours of the 9/11 outrage in the United States was potentially the most far-reaching review of Irish national security in decades. This book, an academic investigation of Irish national security policy as it has operated since 9/11, provides a theoretically informed analysis of that re-evaluation and the decisions that were taken as a consequence of it up until September 2008. In so doing, it draws on unprecedented access to Ireland's police, security and intelligence agencies; over twenty senior personnel agreed to be interviewed. Questions are raised over the effectiveness of the Irish agencies, the relative absence of naval and airborne defence and the impact on national security of the policy imperative to transform the Defence Forces, particularly the army, for more robust missions overseas. The book also considers the securitisation of Irish immigration policy and the apparent absence of a coherent integration policy despite international evidence suggesting the potential for radicalisation in socially marginalised western communities. Theoretically, the book demonstrates the utility to the analysis of national security policy of three conceptual models of historical institutionalism, governmental politics and threat evaluation.
Sexual images and innuendo have become commonplace in contemporary advertising; they often fail to register in any meaningful way with the audience. This book examines the essentially racist stereotypes through which Irish people have conventionally been regarded have been increasingly challenged and even displaced perhaps by a sequence of rather more complimentary perspectives. The various developments that are signified within the figure of the Celtic Tiger might be considered to have radically altered the field of political possibility in Ireland. The enormous cuts in public expenditure that marked this period are held to have established a desirable, stable macroeconomic environment. The Celtic Tiger shows that one can use the rhetoric about 'social solidarity' while actually implementing policies which increase class polarisation. The book discusses the current hegemonic construction of Ireland as an open, cosmopolitan, multicultural, tourist-friendly society. The two central pieces of legislation which currently shape Irish immigration policy are the 1996 Refugee Act and the Immigration Bill of 1999. The book offers a critical examination of the realities of the Celtic Tiger for Irish women. Processes of nation state formation invariably invoke homogeneous narratives of ethnicity and national identity. To invoke a collective subject of contemporary Ireland rhetorically is to make such a strategic utopian political assumption. For the last few hundred years, the Gaeltacht has exemplified the crisis of Irish modernity. Culture becomes capital, and vice versa, while political action increasingly consists of the struggle to maintain democratic autonomy in the face of global market forces.
consequence of the labour market dynamism of the Celtic Tiger; a narrative of ethnic and national identity inherited from the process of state formation before and after independence; within the field of international relations, a commitment to constitutional liberalism and the rule of law – this expresses itself in support for the United Nations and the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Migration in Ireland The two central pieces of legislation which currently shape Irish immigration policy are the 1996 Refugee Act (which was not fully passed until
new member states. Source : Derived from P. O’Connell, ‘Why are so few Africans at work in Ireland? Immigration Policy and Labour Market Disadvantage’, UCD Geary Working Paper Series: WP2018/16 (Dublin: UCD, 2018). Part of these educational differences may relate to age. Given patterns of educational expansion, younger people tend to have higher educational profiles, and most migrants are young. Figure 5.2 shows the distribution of age groups in each of the regions of birth. Figure 5.2 Age group by region of birth
migrants in the state. 6 A growth in the undocumented Filipino population took place as a result of an abrupt shift in Irish immigration policy in October 2003. Before then, the system had fast-tracked applications for certain categories of skilled worker from non-EU countries, and was, in theory, more restrictive in other cases. In practice, a laissez-faire system operated until 2003 when a new Employment Permits Act was introduced, which granted free access to the Irish job market to people from the new EU member states (from 1 May 2004). Now unable to obtain work
’s allowances. These political and policy responses to immigration deepened constitutional and legal distinctions between citizens and non-citizens. In essence, the referendum outcome marked the end of a phase of Irish immigration policy, but not of a mindset preoccupied with deepening distinctions between Irish citizens and immigrants and with little or no focus on integration or social cohesion. The quest for impermeable borders by one influential part of Irish government coexisted, as noted in Chapter 2, with an influential market case for porous ones. Between them
7 Integration as social inclusion No society can view without deep concern the prospect of a significant minority of people becoming more removed from the incomes and lifestyles of the majority. (National Anti-Poverty Strategy, 1997) The first major Irish immigration policy statement, Integration: A Two Way Process (2000) advocated the integration of refugees and immigrants into Irish society through employment promotion measures and through addressing specific barriers of discrimination, non-recognition of qualifications and lack of fluency in English.1 The
in the final stages of completion. However, important differences still exist between Member States, shaped by older international relationships and by domestic policies. Public responses to immigration levels in the 1990s together with acute housing shortages were formative influences in the growth of Ireland’s asylum system. So also was the close relationship between UK and Irish immigration policies. Britain and Ireland have since 1922 shared a Common Travel Area and the immigration policies in both jurisdictions have consistently moved in lock-step. Thus, when