Madam, - In his column (June 17th) Garret FitzGerald accused the media of exaggerating the number of immigrant workers from eastern Europe engaged in the Irish labour market. In May Polish sources gave the present immigrant figure as about 116,000 for Ireland and about 500,000 for Britain. Garret gives the present figure for all east European workers as about 69,000.
Our health service has in the last six years lost 9,000 Irish nurses and brought in 13,000 from overseas. As a result public health leaders in the Philippines are warning that their health system is on the brink of collapse and this is where Garret is missing the point. The issue is not about the exact number of immigrant workers in the country but how unregulated, low-wage immigration affects society.
In Ireland the Central Statistics Office figure for May 2006 stated that 741,000 or about 38 per cent of the work force were engaged in the low-wage sector of the economy. This excludes the black economy. Manus O'Riordan, Fintan O'Toole and others have all produced research, supported by verifiable statistical data, which argued that unregulated low-wage immigration and unscrupulous hiring practices were undermining wages and conditions of Irish workers and that displacement was a fact of life. Indeed, if this was not the case, one would have to deduce that the laws of supply and demand were somehow miraculously suspended when applied to the labour market.
Garret states that "the benefits to our economy and society of the immigration of workers from eastern Europe have been considerable. . ." This may hold for employers because there is no evidence that low-wage labour benefits the consumer with lower prices.
It only increases profit-taking and this is certainly borne out in our construction and hospitality sectors. It is not true for those engaged in the low-wage sector of the economy.
Undoubtedly access to lower-paid foreign workers has a depressing effect on wages for blue-collar workers.
For these a job is no longer a sure way out of poverty and the maximum wage is often the minimum wage. In countries such as the US and Germany, which have a history of low-wage immigration, studies have underlined an increase in inequalities, growing poverty levels and the creation of an alienated underclass. Some people who stand in different queues may be unaware of this, others may not care.
George Borjas, a respected U.S. expert on the economics of immigration, wrote in the New York Times in 1996, "low-income workers and taxpayers in immigrant states lose; those who employ immigrants or use immigrant services win, as do the immigrants themselves. The critical issue is how much we care about the wellbeing of immigrants compared with that of the Americans who win and the Americans who lose." - Yours, etc,
SIMON O'DONNELL, Church Place, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Madam, - Garret FitzGerald points out that when dealing with the number of immigrant workers, in particular those from Poland, "the media continue to publish grossly exaggerated figures".
He may have been right: in his interesting analysis of CSO figures, he suggests that the number of Polish workers in Ireland is "unlikely to be much over 40,000".
In the same edition Rosita Boland tells us "this country is now home to 130,000 Poles".
Hopefully the results of Census 2006 will settle this particular argument. - Is mise,
LAURENCE JONES, Lios na gCraobh, Annascaul, Co Kerry.