Madam, - Gabrielle Monaghan writes that "almost 200,000 Poles have moved here" and that Poles "now constitute about 8 per cent of the workforce" (Business This Week, February 16th).
The most recent data from the Quarterly National Household Survey (Q3, 2006) tells a different story. According to this survey, fewer than 90,000 people from all 10 2004 EU accession countries participate in the Irish workforce, a share of 4 per cent. Ms Monaghan seems to base her claim on the total of PPS numbers issued to Polish citizens since EU enlargement. However, these numbers indicate inward migration flows but not net migration, which is considerably lower. We will have to wait for the results of the 2006 Census for reliable migration statistics broken down by nationality. However, it is likely that the actual number of Polish citizens residing in Ireland is far lower than 200,000. - Yours, etc,
TORBEN KRINGS,
School of Law
and Government,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9.