Pete Lunn

So the tone of this debate has led to widespread public misperception about the scale of immigration.

Why does that matter?

Because the research shows that those misperceptions are linked to negative and hostile attitudes to immigrants.

So there is a distortion in the way we're having this debate.

There is no question that there is an international right-wing movement that is pushing immigration as a wedge issue among populist politicians.

That's established and there's research that shows it.

It's also because of the difficulty of dealing with the international protection issues post the Syrian conflict and post-COVID where there's a big spike in international protection.

As I said, it's understandable because that's a difficult public policy issue that there will be a lot of debate about that.

But the reason I'm expressing concern is because what that is producing at the moment is a level of perception and anxiety that is divorced from reality, and that's causing us problems.

Yeah, no, I would agree.

I wouldn't go as far as saying there are two islands.

I mean, the research suggests it's a lot more subtle than that.

And we need to be careful about presenting stereotypes here about working class and middle class areas that I wouldn't accept.

I mean, actually, even Dublin is far more mixed in terms of social class and socioeconomic status than everybody realises.

There are pockets of middle class and working class people all over the city.

So we tend to have this conversation and stereotypes that we don't want to have.

I mean, I would again go back to the fact people massively overestimate the degree to which the immigrant population is in social housing, and that is a problem.

There isn't the conflict of social housing that is often discussed, and that's a misperception.

I think the problem here is that when we're discussing this, we need to put it in proportion.

I totally agree with David.