About five years ago, outside a church gate in Clonmel during one of the Tipperary South by-elections, a man in his 50s of indeterminate politics came up to emphasise how much he preferred the Ireland of 30 years earlier.
It soon became clear that what he disliked about today's Ireland was the immigrants and asylum-seekers. It was gently explained that when a country becomes more prosperous it attracts and needs migrant workers. "Couldn't we become a bit less prosperous?" he asked, logically enough.
That exchange came to mind, thinking through Pat Rabbitte's suggestion last month that we might have, as a last resort, to require work permits from nationals of the new EU member states of central and eastern Europe, which joined on May 1st, 2004, reversing previous commitments.
Most EU countries, suffering higher unemployment, decided to require work permits for a transitional period, renewable up to 2011 at the maximum. Ireland, with the UK and Sweden, decided to allow freedom of movement from the beginning, which was welcomed across the political spectrum, and especially from left of centre.
What has happened to change that attitude? Is Ireland beset with plunging growth, falling wages and soaring unemployment? Are we faced with a situation of force majeure provided for in the terms which we originally agreed? The opposite is the reality. Employment grew last year by a record 89,000 jobs. Unemployment, at slightly above 4 per cent, is the lowest in the EU. Real earnings continue to rise. The steady supply of labour is easing a tightness in the labour market that would otherwise drive up wage inflation and damage competitiveness and jobs.
When things are going well, there are always potential threats, a pandemic, an energy crisis, a sharp correction of the American balance of payments deficit, a construction slump. The price of prosperity is eternal vigilance.
When Ireland, to comply with EU law, decided to introduce a uniform rate of corporation tax at 12.5 per cent, it made this country one of the most attractive places both in the English-speaking world and in the euro zone in which to do business. In cities, organisations which rely entirely on an Irish workforce are becoming scarce. Throughout the country, many haulage firms, horticultural enterprises and hotels would find it impossible to operate without access to the single European labour market. The number of young workers from Asia and Africa, though more discouraged since 2004, has given us a workforce far from solely coming from the EU.
The country is expanding rapidly, with some facilities bursting at the seams. On the positive side, growth has created resources that never existed before to invest in the future, in education, health and transport.
It is entirely legitimate to want a level playing-field. Not just trade unions, but responsible employers want that. Tax compliance, environmental, health and safety standards, the minimum wage and sectorally negotiated wage deals need to be monitored and enforced. If the Government and the Oireachtas will the end, they must also will the means.
To introduce work permits for the few remaining years allowed would suggest a collective failure of nerve. Checking out anecdotal evidence is an entirely inadequate reason for a major u-turn in national economic policy. The extra bureaucracy at taxpayers' expense would hamper the conduct of business. It would encourage investment, business and jobs to go elsewhere, rather than retard that process. In a short time, it would make the country less prosperous.
Ludwig Erhard, architect of the German economic miracle, used to say: "The freer an economy the more social it becomes." A work permit commissariat smacks of the command economy. Some of its decisions are bound to be arbitrary. Individual employers' decisions are likely to be far more efficient than a central bureaucracy that can only have a fitful notion of what is happening on the ground.
Was a moment's thought given to what it would do to our relations with Poland and other new member states? Ireland would lose all the goodwill garnered in 2004, and for what? (Bulgaria and Romania, due to join in 2007, with whom we have entered into no such commitments, are a separate issue).
Nothing in the latest medium-term review of the ESRI, which was never a right-wing think-tank, supports such a reversal. Under its high growth scenario, it states that "the additional growth which is made possible by the immigration of skilled labour will enhance the living standards of the population as a whole".
More generally, it states that the "open labour market gave Ireland a unique advantage and facilitated the rapid convergence to EU living standards witnessed in recent years". An EU Commission report next week will also present a favourable verdict on our more courageous policy.
Immigration policy in every country is sensitive. That does not mean it should not be discussed. It is very carefully discussed in the latest NESC report. Anything that would encourage or make prejudice more respectable is dangerous. Measures deeply injurious to national welfare should not be canvassed, simply because they strike a popular chord and play up public fears. We have fortunately so far in this country been spared the politics of right-wing xenophobia. The introduction of themes that might nourish it is most unwelcome.
If the Government and the social partners want to do more for the least advantaged section of our indigenous workforce, they can reintroduce flexibility to the community employment schemes as part of the social partnership negotiations.
The insidious suggestion that work permits should be reconsidered for migrants from new EU member states with the crude reminder that there are 40 million Poles was not a glorious moment in the history of the Irish labour movement, and has little in keeping with the spirit of 1913 or James Connolly, who expressed a particular empathy for Poland. Is a mini-fortress Ireland to displace internationalism as the new dominant ideal? The proposal, which is not being pursued by the trade unions, should be binned.