We have now had two years experience of the impact upon our economy and society of immigration from northeastern Europe - Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The simple fact is that we all greatly underestimated the scale of the likely inflow to Ireland from these three states - once 12 of our 14 western European partners had decided to limit employment in their states of eastern Europeans.
Very few of these migrants chose to seek jobs in their nearest neighbour, Sweden, and of those who instead chose insular destinations, a quite disproportionate number selected Ireland rather than the United Kingdom, presumably because of better employment opportunities here.
In retrospect, it was probably just as well that we miscalculated. For, had we known that as many as one-quarter of a million workers from that corner of Europe would choose to come to our State, we might well have panicked and decided instead to refuse to allow them to work here. As a result, our economic growth would have been much lower than has turned out to be the case.
Back in 2004, we simply failed to appreciate that the scale of demand for labour in Ireland between 2004 and 2006 would be anything like what we have actually experienced, and we also did not understand that over two-thirds of these workers would in fact stay here only temporarily, returning home to their own countries as soon as they had earned enough for their brief visit to have been financially worthwhile.
In fact, only 30 per cent of these immigrants have remained here permanently. Between May 2004 and May of the current year, no less than 230,000 workers from these three countries had arrived in our State and had sought personal public service numbers to enable them to take up employment here. But by March-May this year, only 69,000 of these immigrants were still at work here (the figure comes from the Quarterly National Household Survey).
Population estimates based on these surveys are published each year, and every few years are validated by our population censuses. Thus in 2002, the population estimate derived from the quarterly survey proved to be within one-half of one per cent of the final census population figure. And this year's preliminary census result has turned out to be identical with the figure that had been yielded by the quarterly survey.
That is, of course, a coincidence, and is so described by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), which points out that in some of our eight planning regions there are in fact minor differences between the census and the quarterly survey data. But in only one such area - the rapidly-growing mideast region in the hinterland of Dublin - does the preliminary census population differ from the quarterly survey estimate by even 1 per cent.
So, when you read stories about 50,000 Latvians being employed here, or several hundred thousand Poles, you should ignore these accounts. The true figures for the total number of new member state immigrants currently working here are much more modest - just 69,000. Of these, Latvians and Lithuanians constituted two significant minorities, with the Poles representing the biggest single group.
We also know from the CSO data that these working immigrants constitute the vast majority of the total number of immigrants from the 10 new European Union member states.
For, whereas as much as one-half of our indigenous population are dependants rather than workers, (including of course some unemployed), only 13 per cent of immigrants from new EU member states are dependants. Thus, from our point of view these new member state immigrants are almost all pure gain, for among them there are very few dependants to be housed, or children to be educated.
And, despite fears to the contrary, the arrival here of these immigrants, whether as temporary residents, (as 70 per cent of them have turned out to be), or as new settled members of our society, (as has been the case with 30 per cent), has had no visible net impact upon the employment of our own people. For our unemployment rate in the second quarter of this year was 4.4 per cent - actually fractionally below the 4.5 per cent figure of two years earlier.
That is not to say that this recent largescale immigration from northeastern Europe has created no problems. Inevitably, a minority of employers have sought to take advantage of some of these foreign workers, many of whom are unfamiliar with our labour laws and minimum pay. The unions in the construction sector have been vigilant about such abuses, which, however are sometimes difficult to patrol. In other less unionised sectors, immigrant workers may have to depend upon our labour inspectorate for protection against exploitation and that part of our public regulatory apparatus is currently grossly under-staffed, and will not be able to operate on the scale required until later next year.
In circumstances like this, the most effective way of minimising abuses would be to hit hard at whatever small number of them can be readily identified by the inadequate staff currently available. Heavy fines in a small number of such cases, or jail sentences if available as a remedy for major cases of worker exploitation, could have a salutary effect.
Instead, it has been reported that there has been only one prosecution so far for failure to pay the minimum wage - a practice which appears to be quite widespread in certain sectors. As in so many other areas of law here, there seems to be a problem of enforcement, which clearly needs urgent attention by the responsible officials.
This article has concentrated upon just one aspect of immigration. Some of this movement is by bus or train, but much is by air.
During the recent summer period, Ryanair and Aer Lingus, and some eastern European carriers, operated an average of 15 or 16 flights each day between nine airports in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, and Dublin and Cork - offering well over 20,000 seats a week in both directions.
I have to say that when I worked in Aer Lingus 50 year ago, anything like that was totally inconceivable.