WorldView/Paul Gillespie:Migration is rarely out of the headlines these days, and this week has been no exception. It looks as if the Government is going to restrict free labour movement from Bulgaria and Romania when they join the European Union in January.
Workers from there will not swell the 300,000 or so work permits issued so far to people from the 10 states that joined in 2004, which now make up 70 per cent of the migrant workers here. The actual numbers are less than this, of course, because of turnover; but accurate information is still lacking on many aspects of this remarkable migration to Ireland, in which an estimated 8 per cent of the workforce and 6 per cent of the population are now foreign-born.
There has been a belated official response to this changing social fabric, in good part because public policy has assumed migration is temporary, driven by the jobs market and likely to reduce as growth levels taper off. That this is an unrealistic assumption is increasingly recognised. Reports last month from the National Economic and Social Council and the International Organisation for Migration concluded that "Ireland's transition from a history of emigration to being a country of strong immigration marks an important threshold in its long-term economic and social development."
If the Irish population increases by between 437,000 and 686,000 over the next decade, immigration could contribute from 150,000 to 300,000 of this. These reports conclude we need immigration to fill jobs Irish people can't or won't do, but must plan these employment flows much more carefully to ensure required skills are attracted into the labour force. We also need to manage the integration of newcomers into Irish society at all levels.
Launching the two reports Taoiseach Bertie Ahern defended the Government's record and pointed to several recent legislative and regulatory initiatives addressing these issues. He also acknowledged that historically our society has always been open to migration as well as emigration and that its identity is therefore more open to experiment, even to inventive innovation, than is commonly assumed.
This is an important insight, echoing growing realisations of how cultural change is associated with migration. Lucy Gaffney, chair of the National Action Plan against Racism, says adapting to the integration rather than the assimilation of immigrants is as complex as changing Ireland's culture. Speaking at a recent conference on the subject organised by British-Irish Encounter she said it amounts to a redefinition of our society.
Like many others involved in this process Ms Gaffney thinks Ireland has adapted relatively well to such a rapid transformation, even if there is much to be done. The real challenges of incorporating newcomers have yet to be faced. Most immigrants from central and eastern Europe are young and single. What will happen when they decide to stay and raise families or bring their relatives here? A more pessimistic view was put by Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, chair of the Immigration Council of Ireland, an NGO.
We know very little about the immigrants in our midst, she said. There is very limited knowledge of how long they stay, where they work, the flow and scale of migrant movements, or the health, housing and familial problems they face. The issue is driven by economics. Bureaucratically, it is highly discretionary, with very few rights for family life extended. There are many anomalies, delays and refusals for migrant workers and asylum seekers alike, with an unpredictable and arbitrary appeals system. Official attitudes assume the process is temporary, will go away and that discretionary control over it should be maximised.
These issues demand more public debate, and the level of public fear and concern should not be underestimated. An Irish Times TNS/mrbi poll in January last found 78 per cent of people wanted to reintroduce work permits for the 10 accession states. And although the trade unions have embraced an egalitarian agenda of solidarity and common rights, buttressed by the partnership deal, there is a reluctance to see further rights extended until regulatory controls to protect against displacement and exploitation are put in place. Should there be an economic downturn, especially in the construction industry, there could be much more public resentment of immigration if employers selectively dismiss better organised and paid Irish workers.
The IOM report asks: "Does Ireland want to become a 'country of immigrants' with permanent resident status, a country of 'guest workers' with temporary work and residence permits, or a mixture of both?" Over the longer term, how should citizenship rights be adjusted to these new demographic realities? We are not alone in facing these questions, of course. This year Peter Sutherland, the United Nations special representative for migration appointed by Kofi Annan, has been gathering material on the subject from all over the world. He told a meeting of the Irish Netherlands business association in Amsterdam this week that Ireland has coped well with immigration, including the change it poses for a homogeneous nationalism unused to a multicultural element.
He regards migration as the key international question for this century. The macro figures put the issue in context. Over the last 15 years the numbers of international migrants, including refugees, has increased from 155 million to 191 million, about 3 per cent of the world population. Were they in one country, it would be the seventh largest. Historically, the flow of people has not reached the scale of that from Europe and elsewhere in 1860-1914. National and border controls were invented to deal with that flow, it should be recalled. Remittances sent back home are reckoned at an annual $167 billion, a sum which dwarfs development aid. In China remittances sent home from the 200 million workers working in the east (the largest contemporary flow of migration) make up 60 per cent of rural income.
Sutherland notes that Spain, South Korea and Ireland were associated with emigration 40-50 years ago and are now attracting immigration because of their new prosperity. The two phenomena are closely associated, since it is natural that migrants are attracted to buoyant economies. It is also true that at a certain stage absorption problems arise because of cultural and infrastructural ill-preparedness. Comparative figures suggest that these arise when 10 per cent of populations are foreign-born.
The figure in the US is 13 per cent at present, as high as 1913. There is a running tension between the economics and politics of migration; but it is not a zero-sum game, since the benefits outweigh the difficulties if integration is properly managed.