The flow of migrant workers into Ireland since 2000 amounts, on one estimate, to some 750,000 people from over 200 countries.
Not all of them stay, but it is reckoned that 9 to 10 per cent of the resident population - perhaps 400,000 people - may now be foreign born.
Official figures for those at work are much lower - 159,300 according to the latest CSO Quarterly National Household Survey. But these are regarded as gross underestimates by many with direct experience of the legal and illegal labour markets.
One way or another we are living in the middle of a great change from a homogeneous to a much more culturally variegated society. It has been driven largely by market forces and regulated by private rather than public action. As the series of articles in this newspaper on the subject has shown, far too little thought and planning have been given to the longer-term consequences of these changes. It is high time that public policy-making took these tasks more seriously if Ireland is to adapt to this change by 2020. It cannot be assumed that people will leave as they have come, in simple response to the demand for labour. Men and women from different cultures and backgrounds are putting down durable roots here, together with their families. Ireland has an opportunity to learn from best practice elsewhere, but so far shows much too little readiness or preparation to do so. This could well be the difference between a polarised, resentful society and a relatively inclusive one over the next 15 years.
Those who are close to the issues involved, in workplaces, localities, schools, Government departments, residential areas, research and media have a growing understanding of them and the lessons to be drawn from other societies which have gone through such changes. They are increasingly frustrated with official short-termism in response. As the report commissioned by the National Economic and Social Council from the International Organisation for Migration says, Ireland has hardly begun to develop a plan for a more diverse society.
Policy should be taken away from employers by the State and a far more co-ordinated labour policy developed, taking proper account of the need for particular skills in the economy and the citizenship rights that should go with them. The bizarre and increasingly dysfunctional failure to collate information among the Government departments concerned should be tackled. The opportunity should be taken in the current partnership talks to put a proper system of labour inspection in place that could help prevent exploitation of immigrant labour.
In a more long-term perspective, there is a pressing need to develop education, housing, community and workplace policies for intercultural communication and dialogue. Otherwise separate ghettoised societies will develop, along with probable resentment of newcomers in an economic downturn. These are prudent measures as well as ones that enable a more inclusive society.