PDs prospects under McDowell…
Good analysis (subs needed) from one of the Republic’s leading public psephologist, Noel Whelan, who notes that few, if any, of the party’s seats are safe and one or two look almost certain to go. The primary danger lies in the expected resurgence of Fine Gael after an extremely low point in 2002. Perhaps that’s why its voters were the first target in McDowell’s first press statement as leader. My own suspicion is that a noteably successful outcome from Harney’s time in health could be the key to finding a bounce in the party’s fortunes, and deflect criticism that the party is little other than a small group of Thatcherite fundamentalists. For all that they are almost universally reviled on the left, the PDs have the distinction of being a government party still more focused on policy issues, than of personality. Visible improvements in a health infrastructure that, reputedly has been a ministerial poisoned chalice for all of he FF predecessors, could act as a sober foil to McDowell’s flambuoyant leadership style
A style which most would accept will certainly get the party noticed again, in a way that the industrious and modest Harney couldn’t.
Correction,
The joke heading should read Dublin 2016 for those who are not aware that Mountjoy Square has not been renamed as yet
I guess people won’t believe the numbers until they’re announced by Charlie Bird outside Government uildings on 6-1 news, or wrapped in the nasally south county Dublin tones of Miriam O’Callaghan. I suggest to those who are interested not to take my word for it, go to the Department of Social and Family Affairs (here), go to their contact page and use their form (here) to request the PPS numbers of all Irish and non-nationals from 2000-2005. They will send you an Excel file, just as they did to me, containing the breakdown of PPS numbers granted country by country over the last 6 years (2000-2001). You will see that the number of numbers granted to non-nationals during this period was 757,000!
Then go to the CSO site, download the ‘Population and Migration Estimates’ pdf (here), go to Page 8 and check out the ‘Immigration Estimated by Sex and Nationality’, cross-reference it with the figures on Page 7: ‘Estimated Migration [...] 2000-2006′ and then cross -calculate the figures with the PPS numbers from the Excel file supplied by the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
In that way you won’t have to take my word for it. And what you’ll find is that 757,000 PPS numbers have been issued to non-nationals in the last 5 and half years, that the estimated net emigration during this time is 134,000 and that the numbers of non-nationals in Ireland, even if you choose to be conservative, is at least 350,000 more than the CSO figures estimate.You will also find that it is true that there will be at least 1.2 million non-natioanls in Ireland by the end of 2010, that if migration from Romania and Bulgaria is included this will be even higher and that these figures themselves are conservative given current trends and given the actual figures available from the various sources.
In short, the government is not being straight with the people and debate over real concerns about the highest levels of migration any european country has experienced in the modern era is being stifled by cries of ‘xenophobia!’. The statistics show a different story.
Neither Harry’s current estimates of foreign national net info nor his future ‘predictions’ tally with reality.
He reckons there have been ~500,000 net foreign national immigrants into Ireland since 2000, based on the number of PPS numbers issued to them during that time. He appears to assume that two thirds (500k of 750k) of people issued with PPS numbers have stayed. Why choose two thirds? I have no idea.
During 2000-2005, the numbers in employment rose from 1750K to 2014K i.e. about 264K people. This figure includes net immigration to here and net Irish people joining the labour force (school, college leavers etc.) If, for the sake of argument, we assumed *all* of these jobs were taken up by immigrants, that still leaves 48% of his estimated number of immigrants not working.
If not working they must be:
a) unemployed (but accession country immigrants cannot get Unemployment benefit here) OR
b) dependents without work (The general profile the immigrants I see is in their 20s. There is no way they have such a high worker-to-dependent ratio as 1:1. CSO say only 1 in 10 are children) OR
c) they are off the books, working in the blackmarket (so why register for a PPS number?)
CSO employment figures say that ~10% (~200K) of the current workforce are foreign nationals. Some would have been here before 2000, but lets leave that aside. What does Harry think the other 300K do?
To put it another way, 500K net inflow since 2000, means 100k a year. The national statistics office in the UK says that the net infow of EU citizens into the UK in 2003/2004 was 74,000 (80% being from accession countries). For his figures to work out, it means we must got 35% more immigrants than the UK does. Or is the NSO working to the same agenda as the CSO is?
His estimates, and the predictions based upon them, are nonsense. They can be safely ignored.
The numbers that I have given are not estimates, they are the numbers supplied to me by the Department of Social and Family Affairs. These numbers show 757,000 PPS numbers issued to non-nationals from 2000-2005. There is no dispute about this.
Now I know you have established yourself throughout this thread as a grade 2 arsehole – and I congratulate you on that – but perhaps you might be better employed contacting the CSO and asking them how they collect their employment statistics and why there is such an apparent discrepancy between them and the number of PPS numbers issued. That’s what I do. While you’re at it you can ask them why it is that 797,000 PPS numbers were issued to non-nationals from 2000-2005 and net emigration from Ireland according to their own statistics during that time was 134,000, yet net migration of non-nationals according to them has only been 214,900.
The CSO statistics have been shown to be gross underestimates year on year, by a factor of between 3 and 4 according to the actual numbers of PPS numbers issued as recorded by the Department of Social and Family Affairs (as opposed to a ‘grossed up’ estimate based on a sample survey of 39,000 households, which is how the CSO arrives at its migration figures).
Clearly the CSO is either hugely inaccurate or must answer how it is that they have arrived at the figures they have considering that the most reliable data – based on actual as opposed to estimated figures – is so at variance with their claims.
Considering that I have asked them this question and the answer they have given (outlined earlier in the thread) does little but confirm the inaccuracy of their approach, I think the figures I have shown and the projections based upon them are the most accurate available.
It seems to me the CSO is underestimating the numbers continually. Why it is doing this is for others to decide. That it is doing this is almost beyond dispute, unless there’s some mysterious reason as yet unspoken as to why the actual figures don’t tally with their sample figures based on a survey.
It is interesting that their underestimation is consistent and is to be seen across their migration as well as their employment figures. The question is why, when asked about their methodology and the discrepancy between their numbers and the real, verifiable figures, they have little to say other than to admit ‘yes, our numbers are an underestimation’.
People may live in denial all they like; the statistics speak for themselves. They might be better off asking is 757,000 non-nationals in 5 and a half years not a little excessive for a country the size of Ireland and do they really think that 537,200 of them came here, looked around and left, with only 219,800 staying, as the CSO would have us believe?
Harry,
ever been to a mushroom farm?
Ever been a Polish student?
Ever heard of migratory labour?
What you have found out is that in the last six years three quarters of a million people have come to Ireland.
All you have is PPS numbers. If these people were here, as you claim, their presence would show up elsewhere, like in tax returns, employment numbers, census returns etc.
They don’t. That’s the reality. Where are these 500,000 people and what are they doing?
More evidence please.
P.S. If there are 750,000 then we can fit a load more because we’ve still an awful lot to do on this island and need all the help we can get.
Harry – I’ve no doubt the PPS figures are accurate. Your estimates are based on the assumption that most people (500K out of 775K) issued with a PPS number are still in the country.
I think this assumption is wrong because – as George also points out – that number of people are just not showing up anywhere else, not in tax returns, employment numbers or census estimates.
For some reason Harry doesn’t trust the CSO figures for employment. I guess that unit has been infiltrated too. How about the figures for income earners from the Dept of Finance? Or, wait! Could they be in on the conspiracy too? See budgets, the number of income earners on tax file (look for Distribution of income tables)
Year ’000s
2006 2,062
2005 1,910
2004 1,893
2003 1,885
(couldn’t find figures for before ’03)
These figures are for *all* people in Ireland and includes those whose income exempts them from tax. By Harry’s estimate there should be 300K extra immigrants between ’03 and ’06, most of which would be working. But there are only 167K extra people both immigrants and ‘natives’ in the tax net, over that period. They broadly tally with the CSO employment numbers.
Over those 3 years – since the accession of the 10 countries – we’re somehow missing *at least* 133K people IF harry’s estimates are to be correct.
The fact is his estimates are inaccurate because his assumption is wrong. Lots of people get PPS numbers (I’ve got four from different countries!) and move on or move back. Foreign students, seasonal jobs, fixed term contracts, ‘the streets not being paved with gold after all’, welfare fraud, administrative cock-ups, double counting, overseas assignments to the Irish office – all are reasons why a PPS number is issued but the person is no longer here.
If you are to believe Harry you have to believe that the CSO is somehow missing 300K immigrants, that the Dept of Finance can’t find hundreds of thousands of taxpayers and that we somehow have attacted more immigrants than the UK.
The only place those missing 300K immigrants must be is in Harry’s febrile imagination.
McDowell strikes me as a southern Bob McCartney- abrasive, arrogant,extremely clever, pugnacious, often not a team player, hated by his opponents- and generally right on all the big questions.
Politicians like this are infinitely preferable in my view to the Blair/Cameron mush or the scary quasi North-Korean Shinner mindset being best expressed at the moment by the genuinely creepy Martina (“My da was a Prod hi”) Anderson.
Bob and McDowell are bursting out of themselves to lead, to take controversial decisions that invite hatred. Yes, they actually don’t care if people don’t like them, and they want to be in charge of all the big issues. They don’t try to be all things to all men. In short they’re far more likely to lead than follow.
Of course, it’s also true that such personalities very rarely get the chance, since there’s only one political party in Ireland where the leader’s rivals have ever been at risk of sleeping with the fishes, and grudges are always paid back one day.