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SOCIĀLO ZINĀTŅU FAKULTĀTES RAKSTI III
moreover, Lentin (2007) argues that the ROI does not seem to have any need for an extreme
right-wing nationalist party, likes of the British National Party or Front national in France,
precisely because the Irish Government policies have already been based on “common sense”
racism, which is conveniently disguised as a bio-politics of “care” for racialised populations
and of safeguarding “the integrity of Irish citizenship” (Lentin, 2007: 623). According to
Boucher (2008), furthermore, the ROI can still be considered as a civic stratifier, instead of a
civic integrator, because the ROI does not have a nation-wide integration programme
encompassing language instructions, labour market training, citizenship courses, etc. (Boucher,
2008). It is further noted that this was not unique to the ROI, but it is just one of many
European Union Member States that currently lacks a national integration programme based on
civic integration (Boucher, 2008). The 2004 EU10 accession and subsequent hyper-migration
into the ROI, seen under this light, can now be perceived as just another one of Irish
Government’s mechanisms of civic stratification of immigrant groups. This led to differential
interactional, institutional, structural exclusions and inclusions from Irish society, depending
on the category of the migrant and especially, visible racial differences from the indigenous
“Irish” (Boucher, 2008). As noted earlier, immigrants are subject to a state’s “immigration
policy,” which regulates the access to the territory of the state and to selected sectors of
society, most notably the labour market (Joppke, 2005: 49). Thus, seen under this light, this
post-2004 EU10 accession hyper-immigration was no accident. It was a direct result of a
deliberate racial and immigration policy. As Foucault (2003) once observed, “the modern
State can scarcely function without becoming involved with racism at some point” (254).
Thus, it begs a question as to what would happen at the end of this decade when the Irish
economy eventually recovers, and it again creates insatiable demand for cheap labour. Then
there will no longer be another white, Catholic Poland or Lithuania to supply the fix for the
ROI. Looking around the world map, especially in the developing world, three good
candidates that fit the bill for being young, cheap, white, Catholic, and English-speaking (in the
order of importance) stand out: Pakistan, Mexico, and the Philippines. None of these three
countries, however, fits the bill perfectly. All have at least one element that is mis-fitting, but
Mexico’s geographical proximity to the United States, and its historical position as the
purveyor of cheap labour for its colossus neighbour in the North would necessarily preclude it
from becoming a prime candidate as the next supplier of cheap labour to the ROI. This leaves
the Philippines and Pakistan. Discounting Pakistan on the account of its religion for the
moment, we can see that already 12,791 Filipinos were residing in the ROI at the time of
Census 2011 on Sunday, 10 April 2011 (Central Statistics Office, 2012), and this number is
nearly four times more than the number that were here during the previous Census 2002
(3,900) (Central Statistics Office, 2008: 56).
Conclusions
Just as generations of Irish have gone to Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United
States for better opportunities not found at home, the ROI has now transformed itself into a
place of opportunity for hundreds and thousands of people from the Eastern Europe and the
Baltics. This is highly ironic considering the fact that the ROI was once deemed as a place
from which people were forced to move away due to lack of opportunities, but now is a
country – at least until the recent downturn – to which people come because of the
opportunities. “All this constructs a new in-migration space for the re-nationalised nation of
former emigrants, for many of whom ‘no Irish need apply’ is a very recent and vivid memory”
(Lentin, 2000: 16) and in a nation for whom a normal mode of citizenship is that of immigrant
status, social exclusion, and subordinated masculinity (Mac an Ghaill, 2000: 52).
On a larger scale, however, we must remember that the Irish social development and
transformation have caused undeniable conflict, not to mention unwillingness to change, in the
recent decades. It was only sixteen years ago, not until 1996, when divorce was finally
legalised in the ROI. This compared to another Catholic-majority European Union Member
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