Increase of 5% in number of residency permits issued

The number of residency permits issued by Ireland to non-EU citizens increased by almost 5% last year, to over 38,400.

New EU figures shows that on a per capita basis, Ireland granted the eighth-highest number of permits of the 28 EU member states in 2015.

A total of 38,433 residency permits were granted last year — an increase of 4.6% on 2014 levels.

In contrast to most other EU countries, the majority of the permits granted by Ireland were for educational reasons.

More than 57% of all permits issued by Irish immigration officials were to people taking up studies here, amounting to more than 22,000 permits.

The biggest number of all residency permits were granted to Brazilians (10,955) who made up 28.5% of the total, followed by people from India (2,883) and from America (2,690).

Ireland granted the second smallest share of residency permits for family reasons.

These are usually issued to allow immigrants already living in the EU to be reunited with other relatives from their original home country.

The largest number of permits were issued for family reasons in 15 of the 28 EU states.

However, just 9% of the total, or 3,444 residency permits, were granted by the Government for family reasons last year.

The EU average is just under 29%.

Ireland also granted fewer permits proportionally for employment-related reasons than most other EU countries.

Just over 6,000 permits were issued last year to non-EU citizens for the purpose of working in the Republic.

Across the EU, 2.6m residence permits were issued to non-EU citizens last year, a record number since data on migration was collated in 2008, and a 12% increase on 2014 levels.

The increase was mainly due to a 23.5% increase in the number of permits granted for employment reasons, especially to Ukrainians.

The figures show that a quarter of all new residence permits granted in the EU last year were by the UK, with 633,000 immigrants given residency rights, of which almost one third were US citizens.

Poland accounted for 20% of the total, after granting 541,600 permits in 2015.

Almost one third of all EU residence permits were granted to citizens of the Ukraine and the US.

Citizens of China, India, Syria, and Morocco also accounted for significant numbers.

Many EU governments have adopted a proactive policy on granting residency permits in response to demographic changes.

Consistently low birth rates and higher life expectancy are transforming the shape of the EU’s population, with the number of people of working age continuing to shrink in many member states.

Ireland has the EU’s youngest population, with 22.1% of Irish citizens under the age of 14, compared to the EU average of 15.6%.

Similarly, Ireland also has the smallest share of older people in its population, with only 13% of Irish citizens aged 65 years or over.

The European Union average is 18.9%.

Family reasons remain the dominant factor for the granting of residency in the EU, accounting for 28.9% of all permits issued in 2015, followed closely by employment (27.2%), other reasons (23.8%), and education (20.2%).