‘Economy will slow without 575,000 migrant workers’

FAILURE to attract 575,000 extra migrants will cost the economy billions over the next decade, FÁS director general Rody Molloy told an Oireachtas committee yesterday.

According to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), the 500,000 migrants and returning Irish workers who have come to Ireland since 1997 have raised GNP by up to 3%.

However, addressing the Oireachtas European Affairs Committee yesterday, Mr Molloy warned that failure to attract a further 575,000 migrant workers over the next decade could have the opposite effect on the economy.

“Our growth rates will deteriorate substantially if we don’t have these people,” he said.

“Economic growth would not have been sustained without the inflow of large numbers of migrants... if we didn’t have these people, there would be huge labour shortages.”

Mr Molloy also warned of the danger that Ireland would soon be unable to attract the migrants it needs if adequate measures are not put in place to help them.

“In the not too distant future, we could find ourselves actually competing for these workers. If we get that wrong, we will have more of that nonsense that was thrown up in the Irish Times last week,” he said.

Mr Molloy said FÁS had seen “very little sign of displacement” and pointed out that in previous years other EU nations had assisted large numbers of Irish migrants.

“They were very generous with us and rather than trying to stop people coming in, they helped us,” he said.

Equality Authority chief executive Neill Crowley told the committee that updated equality legislation, in tandem with measures to protect workers rights, was necessary “to ensure positive experiences and situations for migrant workers”.

Among other recommendations, Mr Crowley called for enhanced resources for the equality bodies of the State and “interlocutory relief in cases involving migrant workers”.

Labour’s Ruairi Quinn, said integration could not be achieved unless migrants were required to learn English and were assisted in this.

That sentiment was widely echoed by other committee members and Mr Molloy as well as deputy Government chief whip Billy Kelleher.

Deputy Kelleher is not a committee member but decided to contribute since in his experience there was a “strong undercurrent of racism” in Irish society.

“It’s important that we should prepare and would start explaining to people the contributions that immigrants are making in Ireland,” he said.

“If we don’t prepare them we could have a very serious situation in a very short period of time.”