Pregnant pause

The great German writer Gunter Grass penned a polemical tract back in the 1970s entitled ‘The Germans Are Dying Out’. He was reflecting on the decline, by choice, in the German fertility rate which meant that there would be progressively less Germans in future years. Now Grass brought impeccable leftist credentials to his task. He wasn’t raising fascist fears. He was probing the implications of a profound change, one that was embraced as a benevolent by-product of progress. It was also understood to be environmentally sound, an important consideration as the world economy reeled after the first oil crisis, and began to understand that there were limits to growth after all, and that humanity could not expand infinitely, Popes notwithstanding.

One of the questions raised then related to the needs of a production-oriented capitalist economy. If the Germans were dying out, where were the workers to be found? From outside. And as these guest-workers increased in numbers, who or what would the Germans then be? And Germany itself? How were society and its institutions to move in order to accommodate the inevitable change? How to counter the predictable surge from the far right?

It’s a pity that nobody is asking these questions here yet. It isn’t just that we have large numbers of immigrants. That’s a major issue in itself. Already the boneheads are out. People who are happy to continually celebrate (say) a goal scored by Ray Houghton (a Scot descended from Irish immigrants), or to tell the world that Paul McGrath was the best fucking defender in the world, are equally committed to telling anyone who isn’t demonstrably Oorish where to go and what to do when they get there.

No, it’s also that our own fertility rate has fallen below replacement level. Now, it’s the Irish who are dying out (northern fertility rates notwithstanding). Well, there’s a change. The idea of Irish fecundity has been so ingrained, and so obvious, for so long that it comes as a shock every time we hear that we’ve become just like the rest of the economically advanced peoples of the world.

So, it’s also a shock and a puzzle to hear the National Maternity Hospital warn that it will limit numbers unless the midwifery crisis in the major Dublin maternity hospitals is addressed. The Hospital’s Master, Dr Declan Keane, is quoted in the Irish Times as saying that ‘we have to draw a line in the sand’. By next spring, Holles Street will also have to stop patients coming in from outside the Eastern Regional Health Board region, he adds. He says ‘it’s like operating a flight to Boston; if more passengers turn up for the flight than expected, you can’t pack them all on board. We can’t cope’.

There are several inter-related problems. The first is that midwifery is like the rest of the health service. About 1/6th of them have left the service. There is also the changing make-up of the clientele. The Irish may be in decline, but ‘non-nationals’ make up an increasing segment of the workload. In the first half of this year, 20% of the Rotunda’s intake were non-nationals, ‘who sometimes arrived in labour straight from the airport or boat’. For reasons to do with language and culture, these take up a great deal more time than nationals.

When you consider that the three main Dublin maternity hospitals deliver 40% of the State’s children, their plight could have serious ramifications As an aside, one wonders who is going to post this information on their web-sites, advising potential immigrants that, although great advantages accrue from giving birth in Ireland, like Irish citizenship for the child, there are now increasing risks as well? But that’s a low blow.

The Irish fertility decline is part of a European pattern, as a European Commission report makes clear. Europe’s population is growing, but much of the growth is through immigration. The Commission’s preoccupation is with sustainable economic growth which will, it says, depend on ‘an adequate integration of newcomers into social and economic life’. Indeed!

Actually, Ireland is way ahead of other European countries in the proportion of population growth arising from immigration – the EU average is 2.6% growth, of which 25%, that’s 0.65, is immigration - Ireland’s growth is 10.7%, of which 4.7% is due to immigration (most of it unproblematic, by the way). We also take a proportionately high number of asylum seekers – 2nd highest per capita in Europe after the UK, if memory serves me well. Next time we all set out to flay ourselves over our numbers, we might bear that in mind.

The reported decline in fertility is a backdrop to the rising furore over cloning. Dr Severino Antinori says he’s going to use cloning techniques to help childless couples. It’s a strange world – some have more than they want, others have less, and some can’t have any.

If Antinori doesn’t do it, someone else will, in South America (The Boys From Brazil, anybody??) or Asia. Somewhere beyond the reach of European and American ethical guidelines...

I’ve seen the distress suffered by people who can’t conceive a child, and the lengths they’ll go to. Wherever a potentially successful treatment is offered, they’ll find it. This is a big issue and you’re going to hear more about it.

Finally, to the strange preoccupation among Irish individuals with faraway football teams. It could be anywhere (I once met a Gillingham fan!) but today it’s the Scottish catholic one that I refer to. I read of Celtic Tiger investors putting loadsamoney into Glasgow Celtic. I accept that they intend to make money, but I still ask why?

It’s all of a piece with sightings of strange and disturbing individuals in Celtic jerseys about the place and drunken riots involving oafish supporters (not all of whom are members of Sinn Féin) of this sectarian figurehead.

In this regard I want to say that it may be good news that our birth rate has dropped below replacement level and that an increasing number of Irish children come from different cultures. This leavening of ‘non-nationals’ might bring a broader sense of identity and free us from this primitive, even simian, association. Until then...