- Immigrant Times
- Oct 23
- 7 min read
Updated: Nov 1
IMMIGRATION IN IRELAND
Ireland needs and welcomes immigrants, but challenges mount
By The Immigrant Times
An October 2025 study by Trinity College Dublin found that the Irish Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) sector is already highly reliant on migrant labour, with as much as 40 per cent of employment in the sector already undertaken by non-Irish labour. This includes both multinational and indigenous companies.
October 2025: For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Ireland was a country of emigration. Famously, after the Great Famine (1845–50) and in the decades that followed, many Irish people left for the US, UK, Australia, and elsewhere. This emigration culture has shaped Irish society, politics, and national identity: a sense of ‘our people going abroad’ rather than ‘many people coming in’.
Only relatively recently has Ireland become a net immigration country (or at least experienced significant immigration flows), meaning many of its social, civic, and institutional structures are more adapted to emigration than to large-scale immigration.
Ireland’s transformation began in the late 1990s, riding the wave of the Celtic Tiger boom. European Union (EU) membership, foreign investment, and economic growth drew workers from across Europe and beyond. By 2022, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), there were roughly 632,000 non-Irish citizens living in Ireland, about 12 per cent of the population. In 2024/2025, net migration was nearly +60,000, marking Ireland as one of the most open migration economies in Europe.
This is, historically speaking, extraordinary. Just fifty years ago, rural parishes in the counties of Mayo and Donegal were losing entire generations to the UK and America. Today, some of those same towns are home to Eastern European construction crews, Filipino nurses, and African small‑business owners. The emigrant nation has become a magnet for immigrants.
Welcoming immigrants
Officially, Ireland presents itself as a welcoming nation. The Department of Justice describes its immigration system as ‘fair and balanced’, and the government regularly highlights its participation in EU refugee and resettlement programmes. In 2019, Ireland pledged to resettle nearly 3,000 refugees between 2020 and 2023. A 2020 refresh of the Migrant Integration Strategy outlined 76 actions across education, employment, civic participation, and anti-racism initiatives.
There are clear economic motives too. In 2024, the government announced measures to ‘increase the competitiveness of Ireland in attracting key skills’, including easier work rights for spouses of permit holders. Roughly one in five workers in Ireland’s labour force today are non-Irish citizens, underpinning critical sectors such as healthcare, tech, hospitality and construction.
At first glance, this seems a model of pragmatic openness: migration policy aligned with economic growth and social integration. But the experience of the past two years reveals a more complex picture. Beneath the official welcome lies a growing undercurrent of resentment, one that has recently erupted into the streets.
Good intentions and reality
On paper, Ireland’s immigration and integration policies look progressive. In practice, implementation has often lagged behind intention. Housing shortages, slow asylum procedures, and under-resourced local services have undermined confidence, both among migrants seeking fairness and locals fearing strain.
NGOs such as the Irish Refugee Council (Nasc) and the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland note that many asylum seekers wait months or years in direct provision or emergency accommodation. Language training, school access, and employment supports vary dramatically by location. Community integration programmes often depend on short-term grants or volunteer labour.
“There’s a real gap between the rhetoric of welcome and the lived experience,” says a staffer with one Dublin-based NGO. “The government says it’s an inclusive society, but integration requires housing, schools, and healthcare, and that’s where the system is creaking.”
Local stories
Behind every headline protest is a local story. In small towns across Ireland, from Roscommon to Clare, from Kildare to Kerry, the arrival of asylum seekers in repurposed hotels has divided communities. Some locals organise tea mornings and welcome events. Others picket the hotel gates, citing a lack of consultation and strain on local amenities.
Local officials often find themselves in impossible positions: under pressure from both the central government to provide accommodation and from residents who feel blindsided. Many complain that they are informed of asylum placements with little warning or resources to prepare schools, clinics, or public transport.
“The communication gap is huge,” said one councillor in the Midlands. “People don’t mind newcomers, but they hate being ignored. That’s where fear fills the vacuum.”
These community tensions are not unique to Ireland. But they hit harder here because the country’s shift from emigration to immigration has been so swift. There has been little time to build the civic infrastructure or political vocabulary to manage diversity at scale.
Anti-immigrant protests
In the past three years, Ireland has witnessed a surge of anti‑immigrant demonstrations. From small rural pickets to city‑centre rallies, the message, often delivered in tones of anger and fear, is unmistakable. Protesters frame immigration as a threat to housing, jobs, and safety. Many protests have targeted hotels and public buildings housing asylum seekers.
In October 2025, violence flared outside a Dublin hotel accommodating asylum seekers. Protesters hurled bricks and fireworks at police, set a van alight, and chanted anti‑migrant slogans. Six arrests were made. It was the latest and most serious episode in a pattern that has seen anti‑immigration protests grow more aggressive, if not more numerous, since 2023.
The Gardaí, Ireland’s national police, report that while the number of such protests fell slightly in 2024, their intensity increased. Far-right groups, previously marginal in Irish politics, have found a new foothold by exploiting fears over housing shortages and strained public services.
Ireland’s housing crisis provides fertile ground for this anger. Rents and house prices have soared. Local councils struggle to provide accommodation for both long-term residents and new arrivals. In this context, asylum seekers lodged in temporary hotel rooms have become visible symbols of state failure and convenient scapegoats.
Social media has amplified this anger. Online networks circulate sensationalised or false stories about crimes committed by migrants. Hashtags calling to ‘keep Ireland Irish’ gain traction, mixing nostalgia with nativism. Analysts warn that such narratives are increasingly sophisticated and coordinated, blending local grievances with global far-right discourse.
The question of Irishness
Perhaps the deepest question is cultural. For centuries, Irish identity was forged through exile: the emigrant’s longing, the diaspora’s pride. Now, for the first time in living memory, Ireland must define itself not by who leaves, but by who arrives, and who stays.
What does it mean to be Irish in 2025? Is it ancestry, citizenship, residence, or shared values? Can the children of Nigerian nurses or Polish builders claim Irishness as naturally as those of Mayo farmers? The census, with its growing list of ethnic backgrounds and religions, tells one story. The street protest, with its slogans about protecting ‘Irishness’, tells another.
This identity debate is not purely abstract. It shapes policy, politics, and daily life. The far right’s rise, while still small in electoral terms, draws power from the notion that ‘real Irishness’ is under siege. Against that, many others insist that modern Irishness is already multicultural, that diversity is simply the newest chapter in a long history of mobility.
Ireland needs immigrants
Demographically, Ireland needs immigrants. The population is ageing, labour shortages are acute in healthcare, construction and tech, and birth rates are below replacement level. Without continued inward migration, the country’s growth model and welfare systems would be in jeopardy.
The government recognises this. Recent policy reforms have streamlined work permit processing and broadened eligibility for family reunification. Employers routinely recruit abroad to fill vacancies. The paradox is that the same economic system that depends on migration has become the stage for political backlash against it.
Political rhetoric vs local kindness
So far, mainstream Irish politics has resisted the hard turn seen in parts of Europe. No anti-immigrant party holds a seat in the Dáil (parliament), and major parties continue to condemn racism and xenophobia. But the rhetoric is shifting. Politicians across the spectrum now stress the need for ‘orderly migration and balanced distribution’. Behind these euphemisms lies a nervousness about losing control of the narrative.
In the meantime, civil society is fighting to hold the line. Organisations like the Immigrant Council of Ireland and local volunteer networks continue to promote inclusion through education, sport, and cultural exchange. Churches, schools and youth groups remain key sites of quiet, everyday integration, where shared experiences often dissolve prejudice more effectively than policy statements.
Immigrants in Ireland by countries of origin
(2022 Census)
TOTAL: 632,000
United Kingdom: 275,000
Poland: 94,000
India: 36,000
Brazil: 24,000
Romania: 14,000
Ukraine: 11,000
Moldova: 10,000
South Africa: 8,000
Croatia: 8,000
Spain: 7,000
United States: 6,000
Fazit
If there is a moral lens through which to view this transition, it may lie in Ireland’s own emigrant history. Irish workers once faced suspicion and discrimination in Britain and America. Signs reading ‘No Irish Need Apply’ were part of the immigrant lexicon abroad. That memory, often invoked by older generations, remains a powerful reminder of how precarious belonging can be.
For many commentators, this is the ultimate irony: that a nation forged in exile now risks turning its back on newcomers seeking the same hope its own people once pursued.
Sources:
• Immigration Service Delivery
• Central Statistics Office (CSO), Census 2022, Profile 5: Diversity & Migration (non-Irish citizens ≈ 632,000; 12% of population).
• CSO, Population & Migration Estimates, April 2025 (125,300 immigrants; net migration +59,700).
• Government Migrant Integration Strategy / Migrant Integration materials.
• Recent reporting on violent protests around an asylum hotel (Citywest/Tallaght) in October 2025 (Guardian / Time / Al Jazeera coverage).
• Government press materials on the refugee/resettlement pledge (Dec 2019).
Further reading: Immigration in Spain || Immigration in Italy || Immigration in the Netherlands ||
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