A study of immigration involving Ireland, Spain and Italy, which has been commissioned by the EU, is examining how governments in the three countries have responded to the phenomenon and how European policy should be tailored to meet the new situation.
Between 1995 and 2000, says Mr Piaras Mac ╔inr∅, director of the Irish Centre for Migration Studies, more than a 250,000 immigrants arrived in Ireland.
"About half of those coming to Ireland are returning Irish emigrants from a decade earlier. The wheel has turned full circle for them and many are anxious to return and bring up their families at home.
"The other half are a very mixed group - workers and their families from other EU countries, immigrants from outside the European Union, asylum-seekers and refugees and retired people.
"The quiet revolution is that so many of the immigrants are coming here looking for work. For the first time, substantial numbers of people from different cultures all over the world, who have no connection with Ireland, have arrived here because they need jobs.
"For instance, there are about 2,000 Latvians in Ireland working in Dublin and Monaghan in the market-garden industry. Some of the immigrants come from countries where unscrupulous recruitment agencies are unregulated and where there are few controls.
"Questions arise about these issues and about exploitation in this country, and we have seen some examples of it, and of whether the immigrants who come to work here are receiving their entitlements in terms of health and education.
"We know that in the booming economy, when certain skills were required, there was a fast-track system of work permits for some, and a different, slower system for others."
The study, involving universities in Italy and Spain as well as UCC, is nearing completion. Its purpose is to examine how member-states are responding to these new challenges and how policy has been shaped. A debate on immigration is under way at EU level and this study will help to inform it, Mr Mac ╔inr∅ said.
"One of the issues, as far as Ireland is concerned, is how we treat immigrants seeking work here now that our economy is beginning to creak and job losses are making headlines as regularly as worker shortages were just over a year ago."