The State experienced its largest-ever influx of inward migration last year with almost 200,000 foreign nationals registering to work or access public services here, new figures suggest. Carl O'Brien, Social Affairs Correspondent reports.
The number of Personal Public Service (PPS) numbers issued to foreign nationals rose to record levels, driven mainly by an increasing flow of workers from the 10 EU accession states in central and eastern Europe.
Of the 130,000 PPS numbers provided to accession-state nationals during 2006, most were from Poland (87,115), followed by Lithuania (14,805), Slovakia (9,857) and Latvia (7,368), according to figures supplied by the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
The scale of immigration is the main reason the Government opted to place work restrictions on citizens from Romania and Bulgaria, which officially joined the EU yesterday.
Workers from both countries will continue to require work permits, while firms wishing to hire them will first have to prove they cannot get staff from other EU states.
However, Bulgarian and Romanian citizens will be free to travel and live here, even though they will not be able to get a job without a work permit and will not qualify for social welfare. Those who are self-employed will also be free to travel and work here.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday said he welcomed both counties into the EU as "equal partners" and was happy to have played a role in their accession during Ireland's presidency of the EU in 2004.
Groups representing Romanians in Ireland, who are seeking an end to work restrictions, estimate that up to 10,000 of its citizens will come here seeking work this year.
Vasile Ungureanu, chairman of the Romanian Society of Ireland, said Romanians living here could not understand why their friends and family were not being allowed to work.
No such work restrictions were placed on the 10 accession states which joined the EU in May 2004. The flow of workers from these countries into Ireland has continued to accelerate over the last two and a half years.
Of the 300,000 people from accession states who received PPS numbers since May 2004, a significant proportion are likely to have returned home. Some migration experts estimate that around 90,000 accession state citizens are resident here at present.
The best measure of immigration into Ireland will be contained in census data due to be published in the coming months, which is expected to show that the proportion of foreign nationals has grown to 10 per cent of the population - its highest-ever level.
Ireland, the UK and Sweden were the only countries of the then 15-strong EU not to impose restrictions on migrant workers from the new member states when the EU enlarged in May 2004.
Since last summer, Spain, Finland, Greece, Portugal and Italy have also opened their labour markets to workers from former accession states. While it is at an early stage, the latest PPS figures suggest that the opening of other labour markets is not affecting the number of eastern Europeans seeking work here.
The majority of EU states - with the exception of Sweden and Finland - are maintaining work restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians.