improving government service delivery to minority ethnic ... - NCCRI

Demographics
Until data from the forthcoming 2006 Census is published, it will not be possible to provide a comprehensive
overview of ethnic diversity in Ireland because of the lack of an ethnicity question in the 2002 Census and
because of the dramatic changes in inward migration into Ireland since the EU expanded in May 2004.
The 2002 Census of Population provides a breakdown by nationality in Ireland and identifies five main regions
of origin for ethnic diversity in Ireland. These are the UK and other EU nationals (3.4% of the total population),
Asian (0.5%), African (0.5%) non EU Europeans (0.5%) and the United States (0.3%). The Census also
identified that the Traveller population in Ireland was around 24,000, representing 0.6% of the population of
Ireland, although NGOs feel that the true figure is closer to 30,000. 200 The Central Statistics Office will be
introducing an ethnicity question into the 2006 Census for the first time, which will give a much fuller picture of
ethnic and related forms of diversity in Ireland.
Ireland has gone through a period of major social change in the past twenty years. Several significant changes
have occurred in the areas of demography and migration:
-
-
Ireland’s emigration rate, which had fallen in the 1960s, reversed in the 1970s and peaked anew in the
1980s, has now fallen to a historically low rate of less than 17,000 per annum. Most modern-day emigrants
are voluntary and the evidence of the 1980s suggests that at least half will return. For both demographic
and economic reasons, it is reasonably safe to say that a return to mass emigration levels comparable to
those of the 1950s and 1980s is unlikely.
The demographic transition observed in other European countries arrived probably thirty years later in
Ireland than in other places. Total fertility rates (TFR) in Ireland in the 1960s were, at more than 4.0, more
than twice the average figure at the time elsewhere in northern Europe. From the 1980s onward a pattern
of convergence toward the European norm was clearly visible. Today the Irish TFR is still, at 1.98, the
highest in the EU and contrasts sharply with that of Italy and a number of other Member States, including
some of the new Accession States, where the TFR is well below the replacement rate. But Ireland’s
demographic structure has changed for good and it is likely that the country will experience, albeit at a
different pace, the same phenomena of an ageing population, diminishing young indigenous population and
a rising immigration rate that can be noted in virtually every other wealthy European country.
200_Pavee Point Travellers
Centre (2005), Irish
Travellers Shadow Report
to the Committee on
the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, p.18.
201_European Economic
Area: EU states and
Norway, Iceland and
Liechtenstein. A separate
but similar regime operates
with Switzerland.
202_There are certain
exceptions such as
students, persons married
to EU citizens and persons
with refugee status or leave
to remain.
203_Department of
Enterprise, Trade and
Employment
http://www.entemp.ie/
labour/workpermits/
statistics.htm#byyear
EU Migrants and Non-EEA Work Permit Holders
In common with asylum seekers and refugees, the number of people moving to Ireland to seek work has
increased dramatically. Non-EEA 201 citizens require work permits to work in Ireland. 202 These permits are issued
through two different mechanisms: the Working Visa/Work Authorisation (WV/WA) programme and the Work
Permits scheme. These schemes, while complementary, cater for people from different places with differing
skills. The WV/WA programme targets high skilled, well educated workers needed for the service and highskilled
manufacturing sectors. The Work Permits scheme targeted lower skilled workers, from outside the
EEA, needed for catering, agriculture, industry, nursing, and domestic home help. Prior to 1998 work permit
applications were below 5,000 per year, from then on numbers of applicants rose steadily until 2003, peaking
that year at 47,551. 203