One of the myths tiresomely exploited by both US and Irish politicians is that of Ireland as an impoverished nation in conflict (still!) and in continuing need of generous US handouts and dispensations.
This week Ireland’s supposed special needs status was again in the headlines, as a bipartisan bill from two Irish-descendant US politicians pushed, again, to channel extra visas (this time, non-immigrant E3 work visas) to Irish people.
Because apparently, in a world full of terrible conflicts, famines, climate catastrophe and displaced refugees, the Irish population is especially deserving of work opportunities in the US, unobtainable from all the other available US visa programmes — despite record national employment here, and with all the countries of the EU freely open to Irish workers.
The E3 proposals are part of a larger Irish Government agenda that includes addressing the status of those once called “illegal immigrants” but now known as the less-threatening “undocumented”.
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The other bit is a kind of lower-budget variation on the “investment passports” schemes of yore. This time it is the opportunity for well-off Americans to retire in Ireland if they can prove sufficient retirement income. Just ignore the housing shortage and struggling healthcare system.
There’s much US and Irish hypocrisy here. Ireland has been quietly fighting for years to get its “undocumented” legalised in the US, a process slowed due to endless congressional bickering over a broken immigration system that also needs to address everyone else. Ireland fought for its US “undocumented” even as the “undocumented” here were deported, and refugees isolated into direct provision.
Only recently have the “undocumented” in Ireland finally been given a solid scheme for naturalisation. Refugees, however, carry on in direct provision.
Some of these US handout initiatives date back decades to when Ireland was indeed struggling, with a mostly agrarian economy, shocking levels of unemployment and the Troubles on its doorstep.
American cash and policies are subtly bailing out a wealthy state that has failed to make its own needed investments in education, equality and communities
Out of such crises came enormous philanthropic funds, such as the Ireland Funds and Atlantic Philanthropies. A staggering level of cash, more than a billion dollars, has gone into Irish initiatives and organisations from just those two funds. And yet, post 1990s, there is something outrageous about Americans giving money to a wealthy country to support basics such as education, equality and community supports, as if it were 1972 not 2022.
Add to this the various special US visa programmes that have benefited the Irish over other nationalities. In the harsh 1980s the Donnelly Visa programme enabled tens of thousands of Irish people to live and work in the US. But, oddly, generous US full immigration visa schemes for the Irish continued into high-employment Celtic Tiger Ireland. Hard luck, though, if you were, say, an impoverished Mexican farmworker hoping to be legalised.
In 2022 these targeted Irish initiatives are ludicrous anachronisms. American cash and policies are subtly bailing out a wealthy state that has failed to make its own needed investments in education, equality and communities — no doubt in part because of the US handouts and emigration safety valves.
Since the 1990s Ireland has featured among the world’s wealthier countries. Even adjusting to account for the distorting GDP measures created by the presence of so many wealthy multinationals here — the ones that warp global “per capita” comparisons to imply the Irish population is much better off, with greater spending power, than is actually the case — Ireland is comfortably well-off.
In August the Central Statistics Office reported record employment levels, with unemployment at 4.3 per cent — the lowest in two decades, and at what economists generally consider full national employment.
The State has had record tax takes in recent years thanks mostly to the presence of, yes, US multinationals — the same companies that US politicians and the last US president effectively complained were doing, oh so ironically, a bit too much for the Irish economy, and not enough for the US. Ireland is also the ninth largest investor into the US, with 650 Irish companies employing 110,000 Americans.
For a laugh, let’s not forget Charlie McCreevy’s scheme that gave an astonishingly generous government payout to people already able to afford to stick a couple of thousand into a savings account for a while. That cost the state €2.5 billion over five years, money that could have gone to education, equality and community supports.
Of course, philanthropy has an important role in national life. But not as a regular substitute for needed State investment in its people. US cash donations have created a quiet, grey social economy in Ireland, obscuring State inaction by supporting badly-needed initiatives across the public spectrum.
But of course, with a significant slice of the US electorate claiming Irish heritage, the pro-Irish visa schemes and glittery black-tie fundraiser events are handy vote and investment promotional opportunities, both in the US and Ireland. So, don’t expect any change in the discreet transatlantic begging bowl politics, now fully institutionalised on both sides.
