Sir, – Population growth (including net migration) places a strain on existing systems, including housing and health. It is the Government’s responsibility to manage them and to endeavour to ensure that our ever-evolving population is adequately provided for. Nobody who lives here should be scapegoated for failures in this regard.
If we are going to build the tens of thousands of houses per annum required to meet the needs of our growing population, we are going to need immigrants to help us build them.
Similarly, if we are going to expand and improve the health service to the extent required to meet the needs of our growing and aging population, we are going to need immigrants to do so.
If it were not for immigrants, our current healthcare system would grind to a halt. So would our childcare system.
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Northern Ireland is in its terminal phase. This place never made any ethical or economic sense
Migrants tend to be young, and of working age. They tend to seek work and therefore contribute to income tax revenues, which help fund the State. We are an ageing society: over the next two decades, the share of the population aged 65 and over is projected to rise from one in seven to one in five. We will need younger people to work and pay taxes to help fund our health, pension and welfare systems.
A birth rate of 2.1 is generally considered to be the rate required for a population to replace itself in the long run, ignoring migration. The Irish birth rate declined from 2.0 in 2013 to 1.5 in 2023, thus further underscoring the need for immigration.
Also, in an expanding economy with full employment, immigration is simply a necessity. Ask anyone who runs a business.
Immigration is essential to a properly functioning and prosperous Ireland. – Yours, etc,
ROB SADLIER,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – In May of this year, Ireland received 2,000 asylum applications. This is a rate of 381 applications per million of the population or one application for every 2,600 resident. Given our population of 5.3 million this is, per ratio, higher than any other EU country.
Germany was next, followed by Italy and Switzerland.
This increase was due to the numbers of Jordanians, Palestinians and Nigerians entering the State.
The EU, which has a population of 463 million, received 85,000 asylum applications in May 2024.
That, if converted, is 184 applications per million population or about one application for every 5,400 persons.
On top of these figures, we had 4.4 million persons benefiting from temporary protection in the EU.
All of these people must be provided with food, lodgings and many other benefits, including welfare payments.
While we listen to the issue of lack of affordable housing, including social housing, and a dearth of accommodation for tourist and students alike, the fact is the numbers seeking, or having got temporary protection or asylum, is not sustainable, while the numbers of deportations are at a derisory number.
In the first quarter of 2024, only 103,515 non-EU citizens were ordered to leave, a decrease of 7.1 per cent from 2022 while only a third of that number were actually deported (Eurostat).
These numbers include people returned to other EU countries, 85 per cent of which were sent outside the EU’s borders.
Among those non-EU citizens ordered to leave were Algerian and Moroccan nationals, who constituted the largest share, followed by Turkish, Syrian and Georgian nationals.
Out of 586 deportation orders made from January to May 17th, 2024, only 220 were carried out.
Between 2015 to 2023, 3.8 people were added to the population for every one new unit of housing delivered, a ratio of nearly four to one.
Are these numbers sustainable while we have a housing crisis?
Surely not. – Yours, etc,
CHRISTY GALLIGAN,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.