Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)

The Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, and I very much welcome that we will have statements on migration this afternoon. With the permission of the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, will jointly open this debate with me. It is particularly welcome that we are discussing in this House the issue of migration. It is an extremely important national and international issue that requires policy decisions and the expression of values by political leaders such as ourselves in this House.

When we are discussing migration it is important to note that we are not simply discussing emigration or immigration; we are talking about both. If it was the case that we were here 60 years ago and the topic of migration was on the agenda of Dáil Éireann, I suspect we would have been talking about the terrible emigration that took place in Ireland for many years. Today, we are also talking about emigration as statistics for last year reveal that approximately 70,000 people emigrated - left Ireland - last year. The more predominant type of migration now is immigration. Last year, approximately 150,000 people immigrated into Ireland. That is an indication of the transformation in the success of Ireland as a country. For far too many years, we lived on an island where people were forced to leave because of economic circumstances in order to get a sustainable life. The fact that now has been transformed, and more people want to come into Ireland than leave it, is a reflection of the success of Ireland as a country. The reason people want to come here is that there are opportunities for them in Ireland and it is recognised as a safe, peaceful and successful country with a very strong economy.

I will also reflect that when we are talking about migration we need to put it in context. The context has to be the demographic context of our population. As I said a few moments ago, if we were back in Ireland in 1841 and filled out the census, we would find out after filling it in that the population of the island of Ireland back then was 8.2 million people. Tragically, we went through the seminal event in Irish history in the 1840s with the Irish Famine, and in the aftermath of the Famine more than 1 million people had died and many millions and future generations had emigrated from Ireland and gone abroad. That resulted in our population still being in decline in the 1960s. The population of Ireland back in 1960 was 2.8 million. When Northern Ireland, which was partitioned a number of years earlier, is included, the population was 4.3 million. Even today the population of the Republic is approximately 5.4 million and when Northern Ireland is included the population is up to approximately 7.3 million. Today, when so many people want to come to the country and are in the country, Ireland, as an island, is still not as populated as it was back in 1841. That is something we need to reflect on. We need to recognise that the drop in our population was a reflection of very negative times in Ireland and the rise in our population is, to a large extent, a reflection of the success of Ireland.

Part of the reason the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, and I wanted this topic to be on the agenda for the first week of the Dáil's return was because both the Minister of State and I were very concerned and appalled at a number of incidents during the summer months when members of our migrant community were attacked. I had the opportunity, as did the Minister of State, to meet representatives of the Indian community and it is fair to say they were very shook by the incidents that occurred. They were very offended by it and when they met me they wondered what they or any migrant had done to merit such a criminal and appalling attack. I emphasised to them that, in my assessment, the Irish people are very welcoming of the people who have come into this country. Along with the Minister of State, I want to emphasise that migrants who are in this country lawfully are extremely welcome in this country. It is very important that message gets out there.

Similarly, another important message both of us want to communicate, however, is that when it comes to immigration we have a rules-based system. In order to come into Ireland, people have to comply with the rules and if they comply with the rules, they are extremely welcome here. However, if they do not comply with the rules, we will just have to enforce the rules to ensure we keep control over our migration system.

I reflect on the fact that approximately 15% of all nurses and midwives working in Irish hospitals at present come from India. We have a very significant number of people working in our health service who play a significant role. It is worth pointing out that in 2023 more than 23% of all nurses and midwives directly employed by the HSE were migrants, with nearly 15% of them coming from India.

In 2023, nearly four in every ten doctors registered with the Irish Medical Council were trained outside Ireland, and one in four were trained outside the UK and the EU. These numbers illustrate that the health service is very much dependent on the excellent work provided by migrants who have come to Ireland to work. It is not just our health system, however, that is dependent on migrants who have come here to work. If we look at our construction sector, statistics produced in 2023 showed that in that year, there were 27,500 migrant workers in Ireland’s construction sector and that is a significant increase on what it was a number of years before this. On many occasions, I am in this House answering questions about when prisons, Garda stations or houses are going to be constructed. We cannot construct that level of infrastructure unless we have workers here and that is why it is important to acknowledge that many of the workers involved in the construction business in Ireland are migrants who have come here to work.

Of course, that leaves aside the many people who have come here from other countries to work in our booming technology sector and in the multinational sector that is so happily based here throughout the country.

In terms of the contribution that migrants have made to Irish society, it is important to emphasise that people who are here lawfully make an extremely strong contribution and they are welcome by the vast majority of Irish people.

Obviously, migration can give rise to challenges as well. One of the big challenges that a government, political leaders and all of us in the House face is to try to ensure that migrants who come in to the country are fully and adequately integrated. Regrettably, we have seen in other countries what happens when migrants who come into the country are not integrated and feel as though they are a separate group within the country. That is not good for society or for migrants and it would not be good for the Irish population as a whole. For that reason, it is important to emphasise that the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, and myself are currently working on a national migration and integration strategy. It will set out how this Government intends to meet the opportunities and demands facing our society and economy over the next decade. It is important to point out that this is the first time such a strategy has been undertaken and we are determined that our approach to migration is rules based, planned and coherent. I emphasise the reason it is so important that we have and apply a rules-based system. If you do not have a rules-based system, you have a discretionary system that is based upon ministerial viewpoint or executive decision and that will necessarily end up being a system that the public cannot properly understand, supervise and see how it operates. It is extremely important, therefore, that we have a system of rules in place in Ireland that indicates when a person is entitled to come into Ireland, how long they are entitled to stay and what the consequences are if they overstay their welcome. I am not aware of any country in the world which does not have a rules-based system that needs to be applied when it comes to migration. It is also extremely important that we let the word get out that we have a rules-based system. As people in this House will know - nobody knows this better than constituency TDs - there are people in this country who want to exploit the position of immigration for their own political purposes. We need to stand up to that. My own view is that the best way to stand up to it is through facts and by being able to state we have a rules-based system. If people comply with those rules, they gain entry. If they do not comply with the rules, they have to leave. Once we have those rules in place it is much easier to defend the system and the public are very concerned to know that the Government and the Ministers, namely myself and the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, are in charge and have a recognition that the system is being applied effectively.

As I mentioned at the outset, the challenges derive to a large extent from population. The numbers immigrating into Ireland are small in the context of, say, a country such as Germany or France but we are a small country which has a population of approximately 5.4 million at present. We also have a tendency sometimes to reflect on a certain element when it comes to immigration, ignoring the fact that most migration into Ireland derives from those who have been granted a visa to come here lawfully. At the outset, I will give some statistics in respect of where we are at present with Ireland's population. As I said, our population has recovered significantly and has been growing since 1960. Notwithstanding that, this is giving rise to challenges because in the last number of years our population has been growing at an extremely fast rate. In fact, our population at present is growing at seven times the EU average, which is very significant. The effect of it is that in the year up to April 2024 the population of Ireland increased by approximately 98,700 people in a period of 12 months. That is very significant population growth and it derives from the following. We had a birth rate of 54,200 and a death rate of 34,800 in the year up to the end of April 2024. We also had immigration into Ireland of 149,000 people. I will break down that figure as it is important we have the context in terms of the demographics for the discussion we are having this afternoon. Some 30,000 of the 149,000 people who immigrated into Ireland were Irish citizens who were returning; 27,000 were EU citizens; 5,400 were UK citizens; and 86,800 people were from other countries. Those are the 149,000 people who immigrated into Ireland in the year ending April 2024.

Similarly, we also had 69,000 people who left the country during that 12-month period. Of those, 34,700 were Irish citizens; 27,000 were EU citizens; 5,400 were UK citizens; and 21,500 were citizens from other countries. It is important we get that demographic context out there for the purpose of discussing migration. As I say, it is a positive news story that in Ireland we have changed the narrative from people leaving the country and having to go elsewhere to get their successful life to people who now want to come in to Ireland. The reason they want to come in is because we are a very successful country and a very successful economy.

The majority of the people who come into Ireland come in on the basis of visas that have been granted by my Department. In 2024, there were approximately 201,000 applications of all types that were received by the Department of justice. Of those 201,000 applications, 150,000 visas were granted. Many of those visas are short-term visas - some are nine-month visas - but there is also a significant number which are student visas. Approximately 61,000 student permissions, as I call them, were issued in 2024. To date, in 2025, there are more applications that are coming in for visa-sought migration. The Department of justice has got much more efficient in considering and processing visa applications and I am pleased to say it is much faster than it was. Nonetheless, each visa application has to be considered carefully. I know sometimes this can create annoyance in the House and Deputies frequently come to me asking me to speed up a visa application. I have no objection to people doing that, by the way, as it is part of my function. However, those people need to recognise that there is a process in place. It is a rules-based system and those rules need to be applied.

Therefore, the main type of migration into Ireland is visa-granted migration and I have provided the statistics. There are two other types of migration into Ireland which have got significant attention in recent times. The first is temporary protection. As Deputies will be aware, for the first time, when Russia invaded Ukraine back in 2022, the European Union triggered the temporary protection directive. The effect of that was that individuals who left Ukraine after the date of that war and went to another EU country could apply for temporary protection. If they received temporary protection it would entitle them to apply for access to accommodation and give them access to the work force as well. We have seen that since the war in Ukraine, approximately 114,000 beneficiaries of temporary protection have arrived in Ireland. They have been granted temporary protection here. The number has declined noticeably since those people arrived and at present 80,000 PPS numbers remain active for beneficiaries of temporary protection as of March 2025.

That is one type of migration into Ireland, which is temporary protection. Then there are international protection applications. That is probably the type of migration that gets most of the coverage even though accounts only for a not small but limited percentage of the numbers of people arriving in Ireland. It is true that in recent years the number of people applying for international protection has increased significantly. I will give some of the statistics because it is important for the context of this debate. In 2019, a total of 4,700 people arrived seeking international protection in Ireland. Obviously, during the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, the numbers were small at 1,500 and 2,600 but then in 2022 and 2023 we had 13,500 people applying for international protection in each of those years. Last year 18,500 people applied. The numbers have reduced this year but the consequence of high numbers of people coming in seeking international protection is that there is an obligation on the State, as there is on other EU countries, to provide accommodation for persons who are coming in here. That has been a politically contentious issue and has given rise to concern in communities. The Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, will speak in detail about that issue of accommodation. There is a policy in the Department at present to try to reduce the costs of international protection accommodation. The main way of doing this, and we cannot sugar-coat it any other way, is through the numbers of people arriving into Ireland claiming asylum. We need to get those numbers down. I say this in the knowledge that of the people who arrived in 2025 and claimed asylum over 80% have been rejected in the first instance. We need to recognise that fact.

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