Immigration in 2006

The State We're In
We’d almost forgotten the Love Ulster march, hadn’t we? Poorly thought-out and badly policed, it prompted an outbreak of drunken violence in Dublin. Mostly it was Rangers-baiting by Celtic fans and Shinners of one stripe or another in disguise, but opportunistic thieves and looters took their chance to get in on the act. Intolerant? Yeah, sure. But when you look at the simplistic version of history espoused by Celtic/Shinner pubbies, it wasn’t surprising.

There’s a Sinn Fein paradox that we need to explore. The party itself promotes a radical left-wing social agenda. But according to a study by Dr Eoin O’Malley of the ESRI, Sinn Fein supporters tend to be more conservative and, despite the party leadership’s espousal of interculturalism, are more prejudiced against gays and immigrants than other voters.
Too late, you might say. The change has already happened, as the census results show clearly. There’s a new Ireland taking shape around us willy-nilly. From Acholi to Zulu, 167 languages are spoken in Ireland. The number of workers from the former EU accession states is now over 200,000. Of these, 116,000 are from Poland and 35,000 from Lithuania…
They have helped elevate the population here to its highest in 135 years (at 4,234,925). Of these, the estimated number of foreign nationals is 400,000 or almost 10%. This is the EU average.
It isn’t without controversy. The number of recorded racist complaints rose in 2006 though, to be fair, this could be a reflection of higher immigration and increased awareness. As with most other aspects of Irish life, there is no scientifically sustainable benchmark against which we might measure whether we are getting more racist or intolerant. All we have are raw data.
Sometimes the immigrants kick back against the system. For example, a group of Afghan students occupied St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and went on hunger strike, threatenin g to hang themselves if Gardai tried to remove them. It raised headlines here and elsewhere, but the truth is that the Gardai were baffled as to what caused it – there were no plans to deport any of them. Thankfully, it was resolved on May 21st.
Given that one of the protesting Afghans was revealed to be a nephew of a former Taliban minister, they may have been among the immigrants reported to be offended by our exuberant drinking, casual swearing and cavalier exposure of bare flesh.
It’s a pity about them. Of course, the caring professions and ‘faith communities’, being themselves socially and sexually conservative, clucked and cawed that we should tone it down, that we were out of control…
Too late! You’re out of time my baby, my poor old fashioned baby, I said baby baby baby, you’re out of time…