Managing Migration in Ireland - European Commission - Europa

executive summary xviiManaging the Costs and Benefits of Migration in Ireland:Some Key Issues for Policy MakersImmigration is often characterized as “good” or “bad”. Such an approach is oftenmisleading because immigration, like many other public policy choices, is more oftena contest between competing goods. Immigration has benefits and costs, and thusthe proper approach is to analyse and debate these benefits and costs and thendiscuss which benefit gets higher priority and what steps can be taken to minimizecosts. As Ireland continues to be a net immigration country, discussions about thecompeting goods involved in migration are likely to become more common.Some of the key questions and issues that we believe policy makers will have toaddress in the future are outlined below. These questions and recommendationsare drawn from our discussions with stakeholders in Ireland, including four days ofintensive debate during two workshops held in Dublin in 2005, and our analysis ofthe evidence relating to the likely short-term and longer-term effects of migrationin Ireland as presented in this report.1. A statement of strategic goals?Similar to many other countries, the question facing Ireland is no longer whetherto accept migration, but rather how to manage migration more effectively toenhance the positive while minimizing the negative. Left on its own, migration isunlikely to produce equitable benefits for all.Immigration has consequences and those consequences can be shaped by policyinterventions and by actions, purposive or otherwise, of stakeholders. It is thispossibility of shaping the consequences of migration that makes it so important toadopt a strategic approach. Until recently, Ireland’s immigration strategies werequite rudimentary, although this is beginning to change. During the course of ourdiscussions with government officials and other stakeholders in Ireland, the IOMteam posed the question – what are Ireland’s main goals in regards to migrationpolicy? Many different objectives were mentioned, but there was no clear answeror common consensus.Given that immigration is likely to remain a structural feature of a growing Irisheconomy, the Irish government should, therefore, develop an explicit policystatement that provides guidance for employers, unions and civil society regardingIreland’s overall approach to immigration. The government should lead a balancedand informed public debate about the reasons for migration, and explain how itwill manage the costs and benefits of migration.As discussed in Chapter 7 of this report, any policy recommendation on labourimmigration has to be preceded by separate discussions about the impact ofmigration and the objectives of labour immigration policy. There has been littlediscussion about which of the multifaceted and inter-related impacts of migrationshould be assigned most importance in the design of Ireland’s labour immigrationpolicies, and why. As a result, a number of important questions about the overallobjectives of Ireland’s labour immigration policies remain unanswered. For example: