No room for Bulgarians and Romanians?
After what many consider showing true leadership in Europe by opening their doors to the workers from the 10 accession states in 2004, it seems both Great Britain and Ireland (Sweden was the only other EU country) are considering imposing restrictions on people from the last two countries to join the EU under the Nice Treaty, Bulgaria and Romania, due to join the EU at the beginning of 2007.
This even though all restrictions will have to be rescinded by the end of 2010 and Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Finland have since joined the list of open labour market countries within the original EU 15. Also, evidence suggests workers from these countries are more likely to travel to Italy, Spain and Greece so it’s obvious other factors are at play.
It seems the main reason why the Irish Republic seems to be getting cold feet is simple: an election is just around the corner and despite over a quarter of a million PPS numbers being handed out to East Europeans from the original 10 new-member countries with relatively little bother it seems the government is running scared of any potential Bulgarian-Romanian influx having an adverse effect on its re-election chances.
Despite the booming economy, the surging tax returns and the full employment it seems the argument that Irish workers will or are losing out still has traction – the clearest evidence being Labour’s playing of “the foreigner is displacing me from my job” card when party leader Pat Rabbitte reminded the nation that there are 40 million Poles.
Shane Coleman in the Sunday Tribune raises the morality of such a decision, pointing out that Ireland has exported millions of its people over the last 150 years – including to EU countries.
“Now we have an opportunity to balance the books a little for two countries that have struggled badly during the 20th century. Do we really want to close the door to Bulgaria, a country that six decades ago – despite being allied with the Axis powers – heroically refused to hand over the 50,000 Jews living inside its borders to the Nazis? That gesture alone surely warrants that we extend the hand of friendship…”
“Sixty years ago, at the height of German efforts to deport Bulgarian Jews to concentration camps, a member of the Bulgarian parliament, Todor Kojukharov, argued: “The only moral capital a small nation has is to be a righteous nation.” In relation to Bulgarian and Romanian workers, it’s not too late for us to be a righteous nation.”
09.02.2006 Move to Britain? They’re all drunks and psychos Guardian Unlimited
Standing outside the British embassy in Sofia yesterday, Rozalina Boeva admits she wants a better life. After three years she has had enough – of Britain. She is coming home to Bulgaria.”I’m fed up. I don’t like it in Britain much,” Ms Boeva, a 37-year-old
care assistant, said. “I find it very discriminating against foreigners. The government seems to tell ordinary people that foreigners living in the UK are dangerous to British people. I don’t know why.”
Businesses call for open-door policy for new EU
immigrants
August 30, 2006THE UK’s leading business chiefs today called on the Government to allow “unlimited immigration” from new EU countries.
The Business for New Europe Group (BNEG) said an “open door” policy should be extended to people from Romania and Bulgaria, which would be likely to result in thousands of migrants heading to Britain.
The group is lead by bosses from firms such as Sainsbury’s and Centrica, which owns Scottish Gas, and investment bank Merrill Lynch.
After the last EU expansion in 2004, hundreds of thousands of Poles headed to the UK – many more than the Government expected – to live and work in cities such as Edinburgh.
By the end of June, a total of 447,000 immigrants from the eight former Communist countries which joined the EU in May 2004 had applied to the Government’s worker registration scheme.
Research had previously estimated that annual applications from the so-called A8 countries would be no more than 13,000.
In a letter sent to the Government, five of the BNEG’s advisory panel have called on Westminster politicians to ignore calls for tighter immigration controls.
The group’s statement will create fresh problems for the Government, which is moving towards controls on immigration in the face of pressure from the Conservative Party and the tabloid press. The BNEG’s statement said: “If Bulgaria and Romania join the EU at the beginning of next year, the UK should continue with its open-door policy.
“A so-called pause in migration from these countries would be tantamount to a reversal of policy and could work against Britain’s interests.”
“The simple fact is that workers from other European countries come to the UK because there are jobs,” the business leaders said.
“We believe that in reaching its decision, the UK Government should be guided both by economic reason and by recent historical experience.”
Last week, Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said the Government had to learn the lesson of the “unprecedented numbers” who arrived in the UK from 2004 onwards.
Nearly two-thirds have come from Poland, helping contribute to the £2.54 billion generated for the economy every year by eastern European immigrants.
Alistair Darling, the Edinburgh MP and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, recently said immigration from Romania and Bulgaria would be “properly controlled” if the two countries join the EU next year.
Ed Balls, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, said: “We’ve seen some real contributions to our labour market from, for example, young Polish workers coming to meet skills shortages in Britain.”
A spokeswoman for the Home Office said a decision on the “level of access” workers from Romania and Bulgaria would have to the labour market will be made after the European Council meets in October.
The business community is split on the issue, with the British Chamber of Commerce warning that unemployment could rise.
Director general David Frost said: “We have seen unemployment rise in the UK and clearly we don’t want to be in a position where we are seeing migrant labour coming in and getting the jobs and supporting the great number of local people who have not got jobs.”
Alan Roden
http://news.scotsman.com
Roland Rudd: Why business should stand up for
immigration
August 30, 2006These workers are young, motivated and economically active. Few of them claim welfare benefits
The recent announcement by the Government of a Commission on Integration and Cohesion was timely. While its primary purpose is to address tensions between ethnic groups, it underlines how much more needs to be done to convince people that migration to the UK should be welcome.
This comes at a time when the Government is considering whether to allow workers from Bulgaria and Romania into the UK. Migration from Eastern Europe has been an issue since 2004, when the “Polish plumber” became part of the fabric of UK life; in the past few days it has become even more so.
If any group should stand up for migration, it is the business community. There is a strong connection between economic success and the contribution of immigrants. Many sectors of the UK economy have been enriched by the input of minority groups. One can point to the French Huguenots and their contribution to textile industry, or the role of the Jewish community in building the City as a financial centre from the 18th century.
Today the UK benefits from the dynamic Asian business community and the global nature of our workplaces. Of the 350,000 people who work in the city of London, there are 189 different nationalities represented. Many of the recognisable faces of British business, such as Stelios at easyJet or Lakshmi Mittal of Mittal steel, are immigrants or the children of immigrants.
The European Union has extended opportunities to work and travel beyond one’s own country. One of the founding principles of the European Economic Community set out in the Treaty of Rome 1957 was the free movement of people. Today, UK businesses benefit from a pool of labour from the rest of the EU. On the other side of the equation, many UK entrepreneurs have found fertile European markets.
Looking at Britain’s economy as a whole, with high growth, low unemployment and low interest rates, the arrival of Poles, Czechs and the rest seems an unequivocal bonus, helping to fill skills shortages, boosting productivity and creating new taxpayers. For almost a million workers who remain unemployed while eastern Europeans win new jobs, the analysis may look rather different. But closing the doors to Bulgarians and Romanians won’t help – while better training and education might.
‘These people are vital. Without them, some businesses wouldn’t function at all’
Philip Hudson
Chief horticultural adviser, National Farmers’ Union
Brits abroad: They come over here…
August 26, 2006
We’ve heard all the arguments about immigration from Eastern Europe, but what about the other side of the story? Andrew Osborn visits a Balkan town that has been overrun by the English.
Ten years ago the sleepy Communist-era alpine resort of Bansko (population: 9,000) was quintessentially Bulgarian.
Horses pulling carts laden with hay plodded through its narrow streets, old women on their front porches trampled on beans barefoot to squeeze them from their pods, there were two hotels, and people struggled to sell their sun-baked land.
But today Bansko is a small corner of Britain in a foreign field and though the “old way of living” still exists, this pretty ski resort is rapidly becoming an East-European Chamonix.
Attracted by cheap land, cheap beer, and first rate skiing and hiking, Britons own more than half of the houses and flats here and “The Lions Pub,” an establishment that offers its customers Sky TV, English cider, and English breakfasts, is the centre of a burgeoning British diaspora.
Bansko is an example of modern-day migration where people with money go to places where the locals are relatively poor to enjoy a lifestyle that is harder to find let alone afford in the UK.
Manchester, Liverpool and London accents ring out from the town’s streets, menus are in English and Bulgarian, and many shop signs are in English too.
Nor are the Britons who come here just holiday-makers – many are migrant workers and entrepreneurs who are trying to make a new life in a country where a pint of beer costs 40p and you can buy an apartment for £25,000.
The town has become home to British estate agents, interior designers, hoteliers, bar owners, and engineers.
Many Britons are buying retirement homes here, too, and many more are expected to come in the years ahead. The impact they have made has been profound; there are now more than 100 hotels, property prices have increased three-fold in the past three years and this once sleepy town has been transformed into one big building site.
Wherever you look, deeply tanned Bulgarian workers are toiling to erect yet more hotels, holiday flats, and villas for the new kids on the block: the British. Some locals find it hard to swallow.
Sasha Gaichin, 23, who works at the town’s Gold Club Casino sounds bitter when asked what he thinks of the influx of Britons.
“I hate them,” he spits. “They drink too much, they swear all the time, and they are bad people. It’s our country but they have bought up everything.” Ironically, Sasha says he might go and work in the UK if he can when his country joins the EU next year.
“
Phillip Brooks, Interior designer
“We’ve opened ourselves up to other people doing jobs that we don’t want. It’s all right saying you don’t want immigrants but do you want to drive a bus or mop a floor?” says Phillip of the prospect of Bulgarian workers arriving in the UK. The 41-year-old made the trip in the other direction a year ago leaving behind his job as an inheritance tax adviser. He fell in love with the place after touring the area in a van with his girlfriend. He now spends all his time in Bulgaria, where low prices have allowed him to acquire a mini property empire. He owns a ski apartment in Bansko, a house in a village and two other rural properties. He initially renovated some of his new properties and then set up his own business kitting out foreigners’ houses. Phillip sees himself spending up to four years in Bulgaria and would like to train local people so that they can eventually run his business in his absence. He is convinced Bulgaria has allowed him to achieve things that the UK could not. “Setting up this kind of business in the UK for £20,000 would be unimaginable. There’s too much competition.”
Tom Przedrzymirski. Bar owner
After leaving behind an accountancy job in London, Tom, 28, moved to Bansko in November 2004. He says he was tired of dreaming of an outdoors lifestyle at his desk. He is now co-owner of the Oxygen Bar in Bansko, a favourite with the ski crowd during the winter. He has also bought land with another Englishman which he hopes to turn into a holiday village. Tombelieves that migrant workers from the UK like him have boosted the Bulgarian economy. “There isn’t really any resentment. Everyone has done really well. If it wasn’t for the English there would be nothing here [in Bansko].” He is unsure though about the prospect of allowing Bulgarian workers to enter the UK if and when the country joins the EU. “It would be bad for Bulgaria which already has huge problems with its working population.” He talks enthusiastically of how Bulgaria’s low prices allow people like him to live a lifestyle unavailable in the UK. “Here I can do the things that I always wanted to, like going skiing every day.”
Debbie Gibbs, Estate agent
Eighteen months ago, Debbie, 39, moved to Bansko and set up her own estate agency, Bower Properties, selling villas to other Britons. She was joined by her business partner Stuart Groves, 43, who moved out from Swansea 14 months ago. Debbie had worked in London for 10 years training beauty consultants while Stuart was a “perpetual student” and landlord. Both say they moved here for the lifestyle and to build a successful business. “I’ll be paying myself the same salary as I was on in the UK after just one year, something I never expected,” said Debbie. She thinks the Bulgarians can only benefit from migrant workers from the UK like herself. “We have an organised nature, and we’re creating opportunities here.” Stuart says he came here to renovate old houses and write a book but soon got sucked into estate agency. He has bought a house in a small village near Bansko and says he has received an incredibly warm welcome. “Soon after I moved in people were coming round offering me eggs and tomatoes.” He believes Bulgarian migrant workers should receive a similar welcome in the UK but doubts they will. “I don’t think they’ll be greeted in the same way as I have been here.”
James and Vania Hughes, Hoteliers
After giving up backpacking around the world and working as a chef in Bristol, James, 29, moved to Bulgaria. In September 2003, he came to Bansko after his family bought a half-finished hotel in the resort town. His dream was to open a pub in his native Dorset but he opted to renovate and run the three-star Hotel Avalon instead. He married Vania, 32, a local girl, taught himself Bulgarian, and considers himself an honorary Bulgarian. He also owns a house and is planning to open a boutique chalet and a youth hostel. He believes Bulgaria has offered him opportunities that the UK could not. “If you were to do this in England a hotel like this would cost you a couple of million pounds and you would have to pay really high wages. It just wouldn’t be viable.” He says he can’t imagine returning to the UK. “I’ve got my wife here, my house, my dogs and my favourite restaurants. This is home.” James believes the UK can only benefit from Bulgarian migrant workers and argues they are more motivated than their UK counterparts. “They work a standard 12-hour day and if you ask them to work an extra hour they consider it normal. They know how many problems their country has had for the past 50 years and that they have the opportunity to do something special now.
The Independent
The headlines … and the truth
HALT THE TIDE OF EU MIGRANTS … HIV CHILDREN BRINGING TIMEBOMB TO BRITAIN – Sunday Express, 20/8
Claim: Britain is confronted with an HIV time bomb when Romanian teenagers descend on our over-stretched health service.
Reality: There are 15,850 Romanians with HIV/Aids, according to the UN. Two thirds were infected while living in children’s state institutions during the late 1980s. The infection rate is 0.7 per cent of the population – slightly less than in the UK.
EAST EUROPE MIGRANTS HELP TAKE JOBLESS TO SIX-YEAR HIGH – Daily Mail, 17/8
Claim: Unemployment has soared to its highest level for more than six years as thousands of workers arrive from Eastern Europe.
Reality: While the unemployment rate rose last month, the number of people in work grew by 42,000 over the three months to March 2006 and by 240,000 over the year, to reach 28.94 million – the highest number of people in work since records began in 1971.
MIGRANTS GET BRITS’ PAY SLASHED BY 50 PER CENT – The Sun, 18/8
Claim: Earnings of British builders and other manual workers have slumped by 50 per cent as a flood of East European migrants drives down wages.
Reality: The annual growth rate in average earnings excluding bonuses, was 3.9 per cent in June 2006, up 0.1 per cent on the previous month. Including bonuses wages grew by 4.3 per cent, up 0.2 per cent on the previous month.
UNCHECKED IMMIGRATION IS PUTTING BRITONS OUT OF WORK – Daily Telegraph, 18/8
Claim: The unprecedented influx of newcomers has had an impact on the availability of social housing.
Reality: The shortage of homes in Britain pre-dates the arrival of East European workers. Accession state workers do not qualify for council housing.
CHEERS, WE’RE COMING TO RIP YOU OFF – People 20/8
Claim: Mafia chiefs in Bulgaria are plotting to flood Britain with heroin, prostitutes and guns when they join the EU in January.
Reality: The Centre for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia-based think-tank, found the crime rate in Bulgaria was lower than the European average with crime rates falling by half between 2001 and 2004. It is now safer than Denmark and Australia.
HOW THE NEW FAGINS ARE BRINGING CHILD SLAVERY TO BRITAIN – Sunday Telegraph 4/6
Claim: The UK is likely to surge up the league of favoured destinations for trafficked women and children once Romania and Bulgaria join the EU next year.
Reality: The US State Department recently welcomed Bulgarian efforts to crack down on trafficking, offering witnesses protection and allowing suspects to be extradited to stand trial abroad. The number of trafficking convictions in Bulgarian courts increased nearly fivefold in 2005 – up to 34.
NHS AND SCHOOLS ‘AT RISK FROM SURGE IN EU IMMIGRANTS’ – The Times 31/07
Claim: A leaked government report warned that schools and hospitals will struggle to cope with an influx of people from Eastern Europe.
Reality: Immigrants make up 8 per cent of the workforce but contribute 10 per cent of the UK’s GDP. Ernst & Young reports they are net tax contributors – rather than a burden – to the public purse, easing the pensions bill through tax and keeping interest rates at least 0.5 per cent lower – equivalent to £500 a year on the average mortgage.
IMMIGRANTS TO FLOOD IN – Daily Star 24/07
Claim: Britain will be swamped by up to 145,000 poverty-stricken migrants from Bulgaria and Romania who are expected to flock here once they join the EU.
Reality: Think-tank the IPPR estimates 56,000 will arrive from both countries in the first year – 41,000 of them from Romania. A Bulgarian government survey revealed only 2.9 per cent of its nationals planned to migrate.
Jonathan Brown and Andy McSmith
The Independent
Last week the foreign minister, Ivaylo Kalfin, said any new migration to Britain was likely to be more of a problem for Bulgaria than for the UK. But Bulgaria is experiencing its own wave of migration – from Britain. British pensioners have bought up thousands of flats on the Black Sea coast and in mountainous ski resorts.
“We are thinking of buying a property here,” Bob Newton, 68, in Bulgaria for a two-week holiday with his wife Shirley, 63, said over breakfast at his Sofia hotel. “We went into a couple of estate agents. The prices appear to be so reasonable.”
The number of Britons living in Bulgaria has doubled in the past year (some 1,152 were given residency in 2005). Lured by some of the cheapest property prices in Europe, British families have started new lives here. They have sent their children to Bulgarian schools. They have renovated crumbling farmhouses, or dabbled in organic farming. Bulgarian officials politely suggest that by restricting Bulgarians’ right to move to the UK, Britain is guilty of double standards
“This even though all restrictions will have to be rescinded by the end of 2010 and Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Finland have since joined the list of open labour market countries within the original EU 15. Also, evidence suggests workers from these countries are more likely to travel to Italy, Spain and Greece so it’s obvious other factors are at play.”
Well these mediterranean countries have not yet revealed their intentions towards Romania and Bulgaria. If they can’t go there, then they will come here instead. So we need controls. ANd what’s this about 250,000 PPS no.s to Eastern EU citizens with “relatively little bother”? Irish Ferries anyone? What about the Eastern European subcontractors working for the ESB a few months ago? And in recent days allegations from the unions about goings on in Sligo. All anecdotes I suppose some will say. But I think otherwise.
Our hospitals and schools are already bursting at the seems with all these immigrants. Pre-fab schools are having to be set up because Irish children can’t find school places. In some primary-schools in Dublin, 80% of the intake are immigrant-children. This raises questions about ghettoisation, with children not growing up with Irish friends, and therefore developing a “them and us” mentality which could be an educational-ghettoisation reminiscent of the residential ghettoisation in Paris and other French cities. We need to avoid this. Our infrastructure needs time to catch up with this huge growth in population, and increasing it by letting everyone in from yet more countries is just asking for trouble in the areas of job-security, infrastructural absorption-capacity, and societal absorption-capacity with respect to questions of national-identity, assimilation, ghettoisation and the potential rise of a Far Right.
Only Finland has promised an open-door and only in Estonia will you find a significant minority with Finnish as a second language, so few will go there. Knowledge of English is widespread in Eastern Europe however. Furthermore, even Hungary has just announced controls on Romania and Bulgaria, while the Czech Foreign Minister hinted at them. Why should we grant what other countries are unprepared to? BTW don’t vote for FG because Enda Kenny called for borders to be opened to these 2 countries when they join the EU on TV3′s “The Political Party”.
Ivan
Some interesting stuff there. But don’t forget, in the future much of this debate will be informed by fear, sometimes based on xenophobia.
This One is for you Brian Boru
Hungary’s Business Wants Bulgarian, Romanian Migrants In
Top news: 8 September 2006, Friday.
Hungary’s business has voiced strong support for opening the labour market for migrants from the other EU member states, including hopefuls Bulgaria and Romania.
Many Hungarian companies depend on foreign well-qualified labour force in order to implement the rigorous economic plan of the government, reports the Romanian Jurnalul National, citing Hungarian media report.
“Hungarian businessmen believe “less pretentious” East-European workers would help overcome economic problems in the country”, the article says.
The proponents of the open door policy were recently joined by the smallest right-wing party in Hungary’s ruling coalition. The Union of Free Democrats protested against what they called the government’s decision to enforce the same “populist” restrictions they suffered when they joined the bloc.
The report comes just days after the Hungarian government officially announced plans to limit the inflow of labour from Romania and Bulgaria for the first two years after they join the European Union.
Ivan.
If you are going to do this, start a bloody blog.
Any debate here has been crushed under the weight of random news reports.
And this too
Bulgaria is Better Place to Live than EU
Letters to the Editor: 8 September 2006, Friday.
Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev is correct in the assumption (that his citizens were not preparing for a huge westward migration).
I am an American that has been here since 1993 as a consultant for real estate and construction (formerly with a USAID program) and, in general, the people who wish to leave, have gone. Some of the construction people will take advantage of the opportunity but it will not be on a scale that will effect any other European economy.
Bulgaria is a better place to live than the options that are offered by the EU. This assumption is why Bulgaria is growing so fast in the real estate market.
Tom Nelson
ANd what’s this about 250,000 PPS no.s to Eastern EU citizens with “relatively little bother”? Irish Ferries anyone? What about the Eastern European subcontractors working for the ESB a few months ago? And in recent days allegations from the unions about goings on in Sligo. All anecdotes I suppose some will say. But I think otherwise.
Our hospitals and schools are already bursting at the seems with all these immigrants. Pre-fab schools are having to be set up because Irish children can’t find school places. In some primary-schools in Dublin, 80% of the intake are immigrant
as per my earlier post, can people please source these crazy numbers? if we’re going to post any old shite we heard on the nitelink, this discussion is going nowhere.
Dear Enda,you should have gone to school yourself. Than you would realise that so called papers Sun,Daily Mail or Daily Express are designed from and for people with very,very low IQ.
Enda on RTE news in recent weeks it had people in the know saying that some of the schools in Dublin were over 80% non-national. Look it up online I don’t know the exact day. The problems with trollies and overcrowding in our hospitals is hardly a state-secret.
Brian,
“Irish Ferries anyone? What about the Eastern European subcontractors working for the ESB a few months ago? And in recent days allegations from the unions about goings on in Sligo. All anecdotes I suppose some will say. But I think otherwise.”
The Irish Ferries issue had nothing to do with the accession of the 10 EU countries and the ability of their citizens to work here.
It had to do with employing workers for under the Irish minimum wage.
While I expect conservatives to muddy the waters it was very disheartening to see many in the labour movement sacrifice to ideal of the free movement of labour to land a cheap political shot.
The fact that 90% of Irish Ferries workers agreed to redundancy was also neither here nor there to the “labour” movement. Perhaps you could tell me of the suffering of these workers because I haven’t heard anything. I reckon they are all in other jobs enjoying their tax-free payoff.
I for one will be skipping over Labour when placing my X on the ballot paper until Pat Rabitte is no longer in charge.
The ESB issue also had nothing to do with East Europeans and had everything to do with the sub-contractors breaking Irish labour law.
Unless of course you want to blame the victims of this law breaking – the East European workers.
I would also like to point out that while countries like Germany don’t let the EU 10 in at the moment, their building sites are full of companies like GAMA who have Turkish and other workers living in containers working for a pittance before going home. A german bricklayer can’t get a job. The huge construction work in Berlin over the last decade was carried out by Portuguese and Turks, not Germans.
Germany doesn’t have a minimum wage so it is cheaper to do it this way. No wonder they are in no hurry to let these people in. They are there already there in huge numbers with no rights, being completely exploited – legally.
Maybe you feel this type of deal is a better solution for Ireland than treating them like our own. I don’t.
We should treat our fellow EU members as the equals they are.
If we are so worried, we can always take the foot off the economic pedal by raising taxes so substantially that the economy grinds to growth of 1-2%.
Either that or strike fear into people about “foreigners” when the EU gate will open permanently by the end of 2010.
The other option is to leave the EU.
“Our hospitals and schools are already bursting at the seems with all these”
I think you’ll find that our tax coffers are bursting at the seams with all these people’s money too – unlike the German situation.
Also the majority are of working age so are probably treating those in hospital and building the schools.
George
Good Post
We should treat our fellow EU members as the equals they are.
For me that is the nub of the issue. If we are in the Union then we should all be equal in all countries. I should be able to work in Romania and they here. Either we are in the Union and accept the benefits and responsibilities and get on with it or we should leave. The UK attitude beggars belief.
Where do you get your numbers from enda? The CSO? How thorough are they in giving any sort of an indication of migration trends in ireland? Numbers from any official sources which provide an overview and some depth are very difficult to come by. Such figures as do exist are contradictory. In sum, it is clear that the irish government is doing everything it can to prevent any real discussion of this phenomenon taking place. This is because they are a very pro-immigration government.
In 2002 the OECD said that 4.8% of ireland’s population was foreign born. (here).
By 2005 Finfacts reported that the OECD said that 10.4% of ireland’s population was foreign-born (here)
That’s a doubling of the immigrant population in 3 years. That means the OECD thinks that ireland’s foreign-born population was around 420,000 by a year ago. I have read reports that the CSO predicts much the same proportions from this census.
According to the Irish Labour Force survey Both gross and net migrations into Ireland are their highest levels ever at 70 000 and 53 000 respectively for the year ending April 2005. About three fourths of the inflows consisted of foreign nationals and about 26 000 were from the new accession states This would conform to your CSO statistics. However, according to Finfacts statistics based on Personal Public Service numbers, which are necessary to work in the Irish Republic, show 80 000 such number issued to persons from the new member states in the 12 months following enlargement. Enlargement occurred in May 2004 so there’s a discrepancy of around 35,000 foreigners between the finafacts numbers and the Irish labour Force numbers. However, there’s an even greater confusion when you look at the government numbers themselves, which show that 110,000 PPS numbers were issued to immigrants in 2004 alone. (here)
I can find no information on the number of PPS numbers issued since 2004 but according to workpermit.com, which is taking its figures from a report by NCB stockbrokers, Ireland has had an influx of some 160,000 overseas immigrants over the past 21 months. The majority of these migrants have sought and received Personal Public Service numbers, and are making a visible contribution to the economy.[dated April 2006](link here)
That is to say, an average over the last 2 years of 90,000 foreign-born immigrants per annum have come to ireland. And those are ‘official’ (and by implication conservative) figures. According to the NCB report foreign labour makes up approximately 8% of the workforce. This figure is without comparison any where in Europe.
The situation is confused but alarming. The government is making no effort to collect reliable statistics and is failing in its duty of care to its citizens by refusing to do so. The numbers of immigrants are reaching levels that were previously unthinkable but which will have huge effects on our overall population and culture, much bigger effects than any other country in europe has ever had to deal with and much more quickly than any country has had to deal with.
The numbers above give an estimate of immigration over the last 3 years of around 270,000 foreign-born nationals. And those are the official figures. The reality is likely to be at least 50,000 to 100,000 more than that. Different people are giving different figures, from estimates of 10,000 a month arriving to 4,000 a week. Confusion reigns but it is clear than whatever statistics are used the numbers are extreme.
[cont'd below...]
And that’s not taking into account the migration into ireland that has taken place over the last 10 years on top of that.
Anyone living in Dublin will be aware of how the character of the city centre and some suburban areas have been altered hugely over the last few years. The official figures are 420,000, which means the real figures are at least 500,000 to 600,000. The change is dramatic and overwhelming. Extreme.
The annual average wage in bulgaria/romania is around 1/3 that found in Poland. In one survey I read by an organisation called EUobserver, 10% of Bulgarians and Romanians expressed an interest in migrating once in the EU. I don’t know the politics of EUObserver and whether they’re scare-mongerers or neutral, but that statistic needs more analysis, constituting as it does 3 million people. I read another statistic that suggested that 2% of graduates and 2% of the unemployed from those countries expressed the desire to migrate, which is a very different statistic, but still might refer to a conservative half a million or so.
The truth is we don’t know but going on the basis of the last enlargement there is every reason to be worried. And I say this as someone who has always seen migration as nothing to be too worried about.
I welcome immigration and multi-culturalism. I welcome lots of good looking foreign women and the ideas, exotic foods, interesting music, dynamism and all the rest of it that migration brings. But I also value my Irish culture and don’t want it to be overwhelmed by the greatest immigration rates in europe if not globally, such as ireland is currently experiencing. I want an immigration policy that is sensible but generous, and one which is not being driven by the selfish and vicious concerns of wage-deflating bosses, by the clueless, by landlords and by those with an anti-republican agenda.
Harry
“But I also value my Irish culture and don’t want it to be overwhelmed.”
How do you see Irish culture being overwhelmed?
What’s going to happen exactly?
Crataegus: “For me that is the nub of the issue. If we are in the Union then we should all be equal in all countries. I should be able to work in Romania and they here. Either we are in the Union and accept the benefits and responsibilities and get on with it or we should leave. The UK attitude beggars belief. ”
Please, as compared to what, the German one?
Wanting some controls and to not simply open the floodgates is not xenophobic, Crat. Besides, we have already ascertained that the ideal does not exist — Germany is, essentially, ignoring the agreement, has Turks living in cargo containers and Volkswagen workers who work 29 hours a week, if the BBC is to be believed and resisting moving to a 35 hr / week regieme.
Good government requires a little more than “let’s see what happens” attitude.
Hey, Crataegus…
Try this one of for size…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5272672.stm
Talk about a role-reversal.
Crataegus
You really seem to have a totally laissez faire attitude to the geographical movement of labour but from where else I have seen you post you are more social democrat towards capital – maybe I am wrong but I think you are wreckless in your free movement of labour re Bulgaria and Romania ?
Poland is a totally different kettle of fish than the latter. My company employs about 30 Poles and I have been to Poland about 6 times in last 2 years.
I was never left in any doubt that if the Allies had got to Poland before the Russians Poland would now be a major player in the EU.
Although Poland has got its well documented share of corruption it is, from what I have read, nothing like Bulgaria and Romania – and more importantly it is something they are embarrased about and want to get rid off.
I have never been to Bulgaria and Romania but a friend came back from his hols there a couple of weeks back.
As they were arriving at the airport a car pulled up and three black leather clad guys jumped out and from the boot they started assembling rifles ! – outside the airport ! The police just watched. They later met some old guy in a while linen suit and ‘escorted’ him out of the airport – obviously his body guards.
I just think Bulgaria and Romania are totally different worlds and we would all be mad in the head to give total free movemnent of labour (yet) to them.
However I must say Ivan has put up a spirited defence of his country and would almost make me think otherwise – but I am still far from convinced.
Well John,sadly all this cheap propaganda in sad newspapers like the Sun,Daily Mail,Daily Express ets make people confused. But the reality is very diferent. See for yourself:
The headlines … and the truth
HALT THE TIDE OF EU MIGRANTS … HIV CHILDREN BRINGING TIMEBOMB TO BRITAIN – Sunday Express, 20/8
Claim: Britain is confronted with an HIV time bomb when Romanian teenagers descend on our over-stretched health service.
Reality: There are 15,850 Romanians with HIV/Aids, according to the UN. Two thirds were infected while living in children’s state institutions during the late 1980s. The infection rate is 0.7 per cent of the population – slightly less than in the UK.
EAST EUROPE MIGRANTS HELP TAKE JOBLESS TO SIX-YEAR HIGH – Daily Mail, 17/8
Claim: Unemployment has soared to its highest level for more than six years as thousands of workers arrive from Eastern Europe.
Reality: While the unemployment rate rose last month, the number of people in work grew by 42,000 over the three months to March 2006 and by 240,000 over the year, to reach 28.94 million – the highest number of people in work since records began in 1971.
MIGRANTS GET BRITS’ PAY SLASHED BY 50 PER CENT – The Sun, 18/8
Claim: Earnings of British builders and other manual workers have slumped by 50 per cent as a flood of East European migrants drives down wages.
Reality: The annual growth rate in average earnings excluding bonuses, was 3.9 per cent in June 2006, up 0.1 per cent on the previous month. Including bonuses wages grew by 4.3 per cent, up 0.2 per cent on the previous month.
UNCHECKED IMMIGRATION IS PUTTING BRITONS OUT OF WORK – Daily Telegraph, 18/8
Claim: The unprecedented influx of newcomers has had an impact on the availability of social housing.
Reality: The shortage of homes in Britain pre-dates the arrival of East European workers. Accession state workers do not qualify for council housing.
CHEERS, WE’RE COMING TO RIP YOU OFF – People 20/8
Claim: Mafia chiefs in Bulgaria are plotting to flood Britain with heroin, prostitutes and guns when they join the EU in January.
Reality: The Centre for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia-based think-tank, found the crime rate in Bulgaria was lower than the European average with crime rates falling by half between 2001 and 2004. It is now safer than Denmark and Australia.
HOW THE NEW FAGINS ARE BRINGING CHILD SLAVERY TO BRITAIN – Sunday Telegraph 4/6
Claim: The UK is likely to surge up the league of favoured destinations for trafficked women and children once Romania and Bulgaria join the EU next year.
Reality: The US State Department recently welcomed Bulgarian efforts to crack down on trafficking, offering witnesses protection and allowing suspects to be extradited to stand trial abroad. The number of trafficking convictions in Bulgarian courts increased nearly fivefold in 2005 – up to 34.
NHS AND SCHOOLS ‘AT RISK FROM SURGE IN EU IMMIGRANTS’ – The Times 31/07
Claim: A leaked government report warned that schools and hospitals will struggle to cope with an influx of people from Eastern Europe.
Reality: Immigrants make up 8 per cent of the workforce but contribute 10 per cent of the UK’s GDP. Ernst & Young reports they are net tax contributors – rather than a burden – to the public purse, easing the pensions bill through tax and keeping interest rates at least 0.5 per cent lower – equivalent to £500 a year on the average mortgage.
IMMIGRANTS TO FLOOD IN – Daily Star 24/07
Claim: Britain will be swamped by up to 145,000 poverty-stricken migrants from Bulgaria and Romania who are expected to flock here once they join the EU.
Reality: Think-tank the IPPR estimates 56,000 will arrive from both countries in the first year – 41,000 of them from Romania. A Bulgarian government survey revealed only 2.9 per cent of its nationals planned to migrate.
Jonathan Brown and Andy McSmith
The Independent
Ivan
As I said I salute your spirited defence – do you work for the Bulgarian consulate or something ?
HALT THE TIDE OF EU MIGRANTS … HIV CHILDREN BRINGING TIMEBOMB TO BRITAIN – Sunday Express, 20/8
to be honest this issue hadnt crossed my mind but now you raise it surely the temptation to receive UK medical treatment for this condition would be immense ? the cost of even 1000 would be tens of millions ?
MIGRANTS GET BRITS’ PAY SLASHED BY 50 PER CENT – The Sun, 18/8
I agree this is nonsense and has kept wages at sensible levels and boosted output and controlled inflation in both UK and ROI – this is of no concern to me
UNCHECKED IMMIGRATION IS PUTTING BRITONS OUT OF WORK
I agree there is no basis to worry about this
“CHEERS, WE’RE COMING TO RIP YOU OFF – People 20/8
Claim: Mafia chiefs in Bulgaria are plotting to flood Britain with heroin, prostitutes and guns when they join the EU in January”
I am afraid you cannot convince me on this – a very small group of people can do an awful lot of damage – Would I be wrong in saying that the crime statistics you quote are artificial because many of the police are in the pocket of the mafia ?
“HOW THE NEW FAGINS ARE BRINGING CHILD SLAVERY TO BRITAIN – Sunday Telegraph 4/6″
From what I have read (and not in the tabloid press) is that these countries will be major players in prostitution
“NHS AND SCHOOLS ‘AT RISK FROM SURGE IN EU IMMIGRANTS’ -”
It certainly hasnt been the case to date because the majority of Poles are either single are have not brought their families.
However the pressure to bring your entire family from Bulgaria or Romania for a better life in the UK would be immense.
“Think-tank the IPPR estimates 56,000 will arrive from both countries in the first year – 41,000 of them from Romania. A Bulgarian government survey revealed only 2.9 per cent of its nationals planned to migrate.”
Such projections in the past have been proven to be totally wrong and are meaningless
No John,I don’t work for the Bulgarian consulate. Just been here for the last 16 years. Work hard and pay my taxes.Well integtated and don’t plan to blow up inocent peole out of fanatical beliefs.
Ivan no matter how well integrated an immigrant is, the fact remains that they are a burden on schools and hospitals. Hence the problems of overcrowding in Irish hospitals and prefab schools having to be used because of tens of thousands of immigrant children filling up our schools. That means extra costs in terms of building more schools and hospitals. In the meantime this means more overcrowding and in hospitals, overcrowding means the spread of disease. Then there is the need for more roads, powerstations and other infrastructure to cater for the extra people. Which may mean higher taxes to pay for it. So you see Ivan, it isn’t just about how well integrated immigrants are (though that is important) but also these costs too. Charity begins at home.
There are also reports in todays Irish Daily Mail about a new and extremely dangerous variant of TB which is drug-resistant coming into Ireland via Eastern Europe and Africa. And yet the dogooders here say we mustn’t introduce compulsory health-screening (which the US – where millions of Irish went – does have and did have when they went over in the 19th century) because it’s ‘racist’. This lunacy will cost lives unless it’s tackled. Honestly the extent of Political-Correctness down here is appalling.
The migration proces is inevitable.The question is do you want european people who are with the same religion and culturel background,willing to fulli integrate or people who just want to come over and turn there back to the sociate and ungreatfuly plot all kind of offences against inocent people. Do you realy want your city or village to look like Karachi with people who don’t make the efort to learn basic english?
If past censuses are anything to go on, you will find that along with whatever immigrant is flavour of the month, the English will be up there as number 2 or 3. No-one seems concerned about that – why?
I believe that anyone who moves to another country should except the way of living and traditions.Eastern Europeans are doing that. If you don’t agree there is always an exit. Political correctness is not fashionable any more and people waking up to the fact that there are too many here who can’t or simply don’t want to adjust to the life we live in Europe.
Sorry if this turns up twice thought I posted it and disapppeared
John of East (1)
You really seem to have a totally laissez faire attitude to the geographical movement of labour
Yes, that’s a fair statement possible it is due to an unusual upbringing. I have always been able to travel and regard that as a right and not a privilege. I take great exception on restrictions being placed on my free movement.
In my experience people are surprisingly similar the world over. They want enough to live on and the best opportunity for their children. Most of us are thankfully ordinary. I should no more fear a person from Tokyo than one from the Shankill. They may have different backgrounds and customs but treating people without preconceptions is a good starting point. It has served me well.
Labour has always been mobile and in a shrinking world will increasing be so. Because I have resources and skills there are few places that I can’t go, but if I were a young lad from Nigeria my horizons would be severely curtailed though my need to leave may be much greater. Somehow I see this as fundamentally wrong.
Indeed I have seen places that I would regard as hell holes and I can quite understand the reason for people to get up and leave in blind hope. If someone with few resources is willing to travel from central Africa to the Mediterranean or board the undercarriage of planes we have a serious problem and need to address the causes. Whilst we are comparatively wealthy and they downright poor they will see here as a hope of betterment and to get here many will end up in the hands of low life parasites. If we want to reduce economic migration we must address the causes.
but from where else I have seen you post you are more social democrat towards capital
In current political climate increasingly open markets are inevitable but I don’t believe they are necessarily fair. The wealthier you are the more benefit you reap as you can exploit different tax regimes and currency distortions etc. All markets need to be regulated. It seems strange to me that we forbid child exploitation at home but will happy import goods so made. (and I know the argument if child doesn’t work s/he starves) If we set rules is that protectionism or setting standards? The free movement of resources does create opportunity and sourcing cheaply has advantages but there are issues that the free trade zealots tend to ignore.
John of East 2
– maybe I am wrong but I think you are wreckless in your free movement of labour re Bulgaria and Romania ?
You may be right on that I think in principle it is wrong to limit free movement.
I am of the view that you can’t have an open market without labour mobility and the European Union is supposed to be, first and foremost a free market. Concomitant with accepting enlargement should have been an acceptance of the responsibilities by existing states. If we are not within a Union of Equals and improving all our opportunities then what on earth are we trying to create? For me in principle there should be no restrictions on the internal movement of Labour within the Union, if there are difficulties with that concept don’t agree to the countries joining or get out.
My grandmother’s family were from Hamburg and what was North Eastern Germany so I am inclined to agree with your observations about Poland. Great people living in a country with elastic borders! A country with a very difficult history and a population greater than Romania and Bulgaria put together.
I agree Poland is very different but Bulgaria and Romania are also quite different from each other. Any statistics one looks at vary but tend to agree that unemployment in both countries is dropping and that both have a growth rate of over 4%. Also there is considerable inward investment particularly in property. However the amount of work that needs to be done in these countries due to decades of underinvestment and miss management is colossal. There are massive opportunities and hopefully in 10-15 years these countries will show marked improvement, and it will take that long!.
It would be fair to say that corruption in the public administration, a weak judiciary, and the presence of organized crime remain the large challenges for Bulgaria and possibly Romania and that both have problems with drug trafficking and organised crime, but it is ironic that we are worrying about their criminals when our own local organised criminals seem to be investing there.
The problem with migration from these countries is caused by many countries not having an open door policy leaving those that do to reap the benefits and the difficulties. I would rather people arrived here legally as they would be less likely to be exploited and are less likely to have to resort to criminal networks to get in. Also if people are able to work here and send money home then collectively that will also have a marked effect in accelerating growth and change and reduce the need to leave the country. I think the biggest problem in these countries is simply grinding poverty and lack of opportunity for most people. They are not intrinsically more prone to crime than we are but the economy is such that crime becomes more prominent.
Let’s say you do try to limit immigration, just how do you do it? Limit the numbers, limit it to those who have been able to find a job in advance or relations of those already here? Limit it to specific skills? Numbers are random, job in advance creates opportunities for crime, and specific skills seems arrogant.
You know my views on organised, or any crime, here or there. Fighting crime requires an effective Police Service and not an immigration policy.
Dreac Cthulhu
Previously you mentioned the USA and its more homogeneous nature, but that is not quite the full story. The US has a population of very diverse backgrounds and there was a time when German almost became the language and now there is a marked increase in Spanish, but there have been, people from many many countries all now integrated in a sort of common purpose. Also each state has its own laws and taxes. Places like Boston are quite different from others like Phoenix not only in climate, but in history and outlook. I would argue that one of the strengths of the US economy is the free movement of labour and investment.
You mentioned a faith in technology, and I agree that our business need to be efficient. There are a number of changes that would help in that respect the first is tax regimes and the second is the attitude of investors and Banks. I like technology and gadgets and it is interesting to see that many individual workers and small businesses have invested in labour saving gadgets. Simple things such as measuring and levelling devices connected to computers, setting out with lasers, drills with clips of screws so screws are automatically fed forward (I really want one of those for my birthday). Many businesses also specialised and invested, but often I have been in businesses that look like they have remained unchanged for a century. When you talk to the owners often the problem is a vicious circle, low profits and therefore no money to invest and banks who won’t lend, but underlying that problem there are whole sections of production where we simply cannot compete with low wage economies no matter how efficient we are. They have good profits and the money to invest and they are investing. A while back I was importing some marble and furniture and the factories looked as modern as any I have seen in Europe. The goods were a third of the price they would be produced here. How do you compete with that? You can’t all you can do is change business.
Crataeeegus,let me tell u something which might turne out to be heartfull. I worked many years in the hotel industry around the Black Sea and Ski resorts.The polish tourist were the N:1 skiming divias and most unwelcome people.Just because the Press has to wash their hands from the last(2 years ago prpaganda)and put the Polish immigrants in a bright ligh doesen’t mean they are right..
Ivan
There are probably good and bad in equal measure in all nations. One difference I have found is that people’s spirit can change depending on background. Adversity, oppression and opportunity can all have a marked effect on the morale of people.
“The migration proces is inevitable.The question is do you want european people who are with the same religion and culturel background,willing to fulli integrate or people who just want to come over and turn there back to the sociate and ungreatfuly plot all kind of offences against inocent people. Do you realy want your city or village to look like Karachi with people who don’t make the efort to learn basic english?”
The scale of migration is NOT inevitable. Govts can greatly influence it.
Crataegus
“There are probably good and bad in equal measure in all nations. One difference I have found is that people’s spirit can change depending on background. Adversity, oppression and opportunity can all have a marked effect on the morale of people.”
Yes, it puts me in mind of the catholic Irish who emigrated to the US post 1820. They started out very definately on the bottom rung of an anglo-centric society, alien and despised. There is an interesting, but probably over-the-top, account of their transformation here:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a2.html
Brian Boru
“The scale of migration is NOT inevitable. Govts can greatly influence it.”
As someone who worked illegally in the US in the late 1980′s I can testify that govts have a limited capacity to influence it – the jobs needed to be filled, immigrants, illegal or otherwise, filled them, otherwise Americans would have had to do without ice-cream sundaes, banana splits and hot fudge waffles if govt policy had been strictly adhered to.
There is an emerging “nativist” argument in Ireland that there are just too many foreigners and that they are a threat to “Irish culture” (see Harry’s post). But I have never heard in what exact way they are a threat to irish culture – or exactly how many poses this threat.
Brian
The choice between Larne and Karachi is a difficult one! Karachi probably has the edge.
Bulgaria and Romania whilst Bulgaria has a Turkish minority of I think ¼ million they are basically Christian countries. You are more like to have Muslims from England or France than Romania. Apart from that religion is a matter for the individual and to view the world in such light is one that that I have difficulty with.
However the questions of integration and planning are issues we need to take seriously. Immigrants have to be able to more easily integrate rather than be set apart.
What happens when a recession hits? Immigration destroyed any chance for America to build any sort of social services-we will never have national health care or even adequate private health care. Immigration has destroyed any sort of leverage unions have-companies that have record profits demand and get concessions because they can always hire immigrants legal or otherwise.
Shuggie
Thanks it is an interesting article.
From early on, Hughes said, he had dreamed of “a country in which no stigma of inferiority would be impressed on my brow, simply because I professed one creed or another.”
Has some salience I think.
I remember Primary School which I hated and loathed and it was a vile brutish place. I remember the feeling of utter joy and liberation when I departed to pastures new and more accommodating. What is the best way to make someone or a group identify with here rather than cling to memories of places they came from? Is it isolate and complain or positively look at the problems and opportunities in a changing world?
Chris
You speak as thought the number of jobs is finite. When recession comes as it eventually will a percentage of the population will be unemployed, that percentage is likely to be similar if the population is 4 million or 4.5 million. Immigrants may actually act as a shock observer as some will leave if recession hits. With regards Unions and leverage better to go for adequate minimum wages and fair tax regimes. National Unions just don’t have the reach of many major companies.
Dread,
“floodgates”.
You call it floodgates, I call it one of the four pillars (freedoms) enshrined in the Treaty of Rome 1957 – freedom of movement of Labour.
If you want to install a “floodgate” against EU members coming to work here, then campaign for Ireland to leave the EU. There is no other option.
You can’t pick and choose parts of the EU Treaty you do not like. Economic failure will turn off the immigrant tap in double quick time.
Brian,
There are probably more “foreigners” working in our hospitals than using them and more “foreigners” building our schools than attending them.
The idea that the children of taxpayers are considered to be “crowding” our schools simply because of their nationality is downright xenophobic in my view.
Also, having grown up in the AIDS capital of Europe, 1980s Dublin, home of the syringe heist, I find your talk of infectious “foreigners” quite laughable.
That article linked by Shuggie McSporran is a patronisng pile of nonsense. It might as well be subtitled “How the Irish were anglicised”. It says, amongst other nonsense: “The new immigrants [in the U.S. circa 1830] were mostly Irish—impoverished, ignorant, unskilled country folk, with nothing in their experience to prepare them for success in the urban environs to which they were flocking.” Only someone with an English mindset would see the Irish with such eyes. The culture of the majority of these people would have been gaelic – something incomprehensible to those ignorant of what it consisted of.
That article ends: “Alcoholism and drug addiction withered away. By the 1880s an estimated 60 percent of Irish women, and almost a third of the men, totally abstained from alcohol. Many Irish sections in the city became known for their peacefulness, order, and cleanliness—a far cry from the filth, violence, and disease of the Five Points and Sweeney’s Shambles of mid-century. Gone, too, was the notorious Irish promiscuity of those years; New York’s Irish became known by the latter part of the nineteenth century as a churched people, often chided by the press for their “puritanical” attitudes.”
If you think the prudish and life-denying version of anglicised catholicism that was peddled to the irish both in ireland and the US was a ‘civilising’ influence on the ‘wild Irish’, you are merely revealing your limited comprehension, your ignorance and your prejudice.
Hardly surprising that you are now calling for Ireland to be treated as a colony like the US when you link to preposterous, backward nonsense such as that article. Are you Irish at all?
And what has such fatuous patronisng drivel got to do with Ireland’s experience of migration at present? As a country we are staring down the barrel of up to 1 million foreign-born people living here by 2010 out of a population of around 4.5 million. If current trends continue and are added to by the accession of Bulgaria and Romania – with similar results to the last accession – then, astonishingly, it is conceivable that 1 million might even be a slight underestimation.
No-one, including me, thought such numbers were possible but under Fianna Fail such numbers are the fact. No country in europe in the history of modern migration has experienced such a dramatic alteration. No other country is experiencing such a dramatic alteration even now. Only Ireland.
Do you think the Poles would allow 13 million people from overseas to enter their country in the space of 15 years to live there? That is the proportion we’re talking about. Do you think any other european country would allow such proportions of immigration?
Why are people quite unable to accept any criticism implied or otherwise of the Irish? All peoples are capable of base crime given the right circumstances.
There is a fine line between National pride and intolerant ethnicity one is inclusive and confident the other twisted and evil.
If people do not want free movement of Labour them, as George says, campaign to leave the Union. Ireland can then remain ethnically pure (whatever that construct may be) rain swept in isolation against the western sea. Over the years how many millions Irish has Britain absorbed or commonwealth countries or the USA? How many have gone to far off fields, certainly more than 1 million.
Only 15-20 years ago Ireland together wit Portugal and Spain were caried on the back of EU. Not to mention 50 years ago London and the rest of Britain were full of desperate Irish immigrants looking for any jobs. Now Ireland is prosperous and comfortable place to live and I think Irish people deserve every bit of it. But please don’t forget how it all started.
Crataegus: If people do not want free movement of Labour then … campaign to leave the Union. Ireland can then remain ethnically pure (whatever that construct may be) rain swept in isolation against the western sea.
Why denigrate your own country? And why the false ‘Either/Or’ absolutism – it doesn’t reflect reality.
You seem to suffer from, dare I say it, a sort of ‘colonised’ self-contempt.
I am a moderate, I welcome muti-culturalism. You, by contrast, are an extremist.