With a shrinking economy, rising unemployment and a darkened public mood, the integration debate took on a more urgent quality this year, writes Ruadhán MacCormaic, Migration Correspondent
WAS THIS THE year of the turning tide? After the demographic revolution brought about by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants over the past 10 years, the idea that immigrants are going home established itself as one of the popular axioms of 2008. Ushered out to the mournful tune of spluttering JCBs and the whisper of tumbleweeds blowing through Dublin's International Financial Services Centre, the theory has it, recently arrived Poles, Czechs and others are forsaking the gloom of recession-time Ireland for the comparative comfort of home.
The evidence is a little less conclusive. The flow of migrants coming from eastern and central Europe slowed appreciably this year. Between January and October, for example, the number of Polish citizens granted PPS numbers fell by about 40 per cent compared to the same period in 2007, and the same downward trend can be seen among Lithuanians, Latvians, Slovaks and others. But many continue to arrive.
Even with a 40 per cent decline, a not insignificant 39,000 Poles still registered for work or social services here in the first 10 months of the year, while the PPS data for Brazilians, Chinese, French and others actually shows a rise in applications.
Gauging the numbers of immigrants who left the Republic is even more difficult, although the Central Statistics Office estimated that the number of emigrants rose marginally to 45,300 in the year to April, and it's a fair assumption that a good deal of those who left were foreigners. For its part, the ESRI forecasts net outward migration of 50,000 in 2009 - a staggering reversal when you consider there was a net inflow of 72,000 only two years ago.
Whatever the truth behind the statistics, the year provided plenty of reminders that debate over numbers is in some respects a distraction from a set of more important questions concerning those who are already here. With a shrinking economy, rising unemployment and a darkened public mood, the integration debate has taken on a more urgent quality. But one lesson of the second half of the year was that the factors that make integration policy more important also act to constrain it.
To the dismay of teacher unions, the Budget reintroduced a ceiling of two language-support teachers for most schools, while the office of the Minister for Integration had its budget cut by a quarter, requiring it to withdraw funding commitments and to shelve plans for a specialist integration taskforce. The National Action Plan Against Racism comes to the end of its mandate this month with chairwoman Lucy Gaffney sounding the alarm over the Government's failure to act on some of its own commitments.
Another casualty of the Budget was the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI), whose fingerprints can be found on a great number of policy initiatives produced by the Government over the past decade.
One of its last acts, it turns out, will have been quietly to press the Government to accept its advice on the vexed question of the hijab, which became a political issue in May when a school principal in Gorey, Co Wexford, called on the Department of Education to issue guidelines on whether to allow it to be worn in class. Few needed reminding of how this piece of fabric came to symbolise wider social tensions. It brought to surface a rare fault line between Government and Opposition on issues that politicians generally prefer not to raise.
The two main Opposition spokesmen on education, Fine Gael's Brian Hayes and Labour's Ruairí Quinn, said they opposed the headscarf being worn in State schools. Teacher groups and principals thought differently and the Government eventually decided not to issue a directive but to allow schools to continue finding their own "reasonable accommodation" in each case.
That incident notwithstanding, there is a general sense that politicians remain coy about immigration, whether for fear of being misinterpreted or due to a lack of confidence or expertise to talk about it meaningfully. Whatever the reason, a general pattern has formed itself, illustrated by two controversies.
Just before schools opened their doors at the end of summer, Hayes made headlines when he suggested many Irish parents were frustrated at the effect the lack of "segregation" was having on their children's education. The use of a term laden with the historical imagery of state-sanctioned separation is probably not the way to broach such a topic, and Hayes was roundly criticised. He later said he regretted it and should have referred to immersion, whereby some newcomer students are given intensive language tuition before being placed in a mainstream class. An ESRI study some time later showed that about 20 per cent of schools were already using immersion.
A month later, Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar asked about the feasibility of foreign unemployed workers being given a lump sum if they agreed to return home. His supporters pointed out something similar had been done in Spain, but Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan accused Fine Gael of playing the "race card", saying Varadkar's words were "designed to create a climate of resentment against people who have come to Ireland to work".
Fleeting controversies such as these were interesting not just on their own terms but because of the discussion that followed the Lisbon Treaty referendum, as politicians and pollsters grasped for explanations for the decisive rejection.
Although subsequent polling found mixed evidence, many politicians felt that unease with the rapid immigration of recent years was a silent factor. If that were true, blame could lie in one of two places. Either political parties were at fault for not advocating more restrictions, or they weren't doing a very good job of putting the case for immigration and explaining its benefits.
MEANWHILE, THE STATUTE books continued to catch up: the State's first consolidated immigration law since the Aliens Act of 1935 made its way through the Oireachtas and people-trafficking became a criminal offence. Many of the Immigration Bill's provisions were widely welcomed, but controversy surrounded its provisions on asylum, with the UN, the Human Rights Commission, Catholic bishops and others warning of the risk of setting an unreasonably high bar for victims of persecution whom the State is obliged to protect.
For most people, though, the asylum system will only have impinged on their thoughts through the story of Pamela Izevbekhai, a Nigerian mother who spent the year fighting her family's deportation on the grounds that she lost a baby daughter after the child was forcibly genitally mutilated and says she fears the same fate awaits her two girls. Her case gathered momentum and publicity - former president Mary Robinson raised concern about the case and a civic reception was held for the family in Sligo.
It was a reminder of that long-standing paradox in the relationship between Irish people and asylum seekers. While as a group those seeking refugee status might be viewed with a mix of suspicion and indifference, local communities are quick to rally to the cause of individuals they have come to know.