Irish Examiner view: Ireland needs immigrants to help address our labour shortage
Alan Barrett of the ESRI said the Government is trying to deliver an 'enormously ambitious national development plan' while at the same time increasing the number of new homes being built. Stock picture: Gareth Fuller/PA
A series of points and counterpoints have been made in recent days about our national infrastructure.
No sooner had we learned of ambitious plans for rail stations in Cork, and motorways linking Limerick and Cork, for instance, than parallel announcements were made that had the effect of dousing those plans in cold water.
A good example was a recent story focusing on the challenges facing our quarries in producing sufficient sand and gravel, an issue with clear implications for large-scale infrastructural projects.
The same applies to our energy sector, where there are concerns about the amount of electricity being used by data centres in Ireland.
Now we have a fresh concern, with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) reporting on the possibility that labour shortages may hinder our plans for development.
As ever, the housing and accommodation crisis is a complicating factor.
Alan Barrett of the ESRI said this week that the Government is trying to deliver an “enormously ambitious national development plan” while at the same time increasing the number of new homes being built.
Mr Barrett said that getting housing completions up to about 50,000 a year would require about 40,000 additional construction employees, but the problem does not end there.
Referring to other analyses carried out by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, Mr Barrett added that if the Government were to complete the entire national development plan, “you could be looking at 80,000 additional employees”.
It is dispiriting to acknowledge that a country which has exported countless skilled workers to other nations for decades now finds itself so shorthanded, but here we are.
Finding 80,000 workers will be a serious headache which may ultimately require a refocusing of the education system to get more Irish school-goers to consider apprenticeships, for instance, in order to maintain a pipeline of qualified tradespeople, but that is a medium to long-term solution which will take years to come to fruition.
The obvious solution is to promote inward migration to make up that shortfall and to meet our need to build houses and infrastructure — no matter what lies the far right chooses to spread.
The international focus on the horrors of Gaza is understandable, given the barely comprehensible level of slaughter that has occurred and continues to occur in the region. A report suggests that around 377,000 people have gone missing in Gaza since 2023, half of them children.
Yet the effects of another long-running conflict are far more visible closer to home.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has led to thousands of people being dispersed around the world from the war zone, and some of them are in Ireland.
This week, we learned that over 100 Ukrainian refugees housed in Millstreet have been told they are to be moved to other locations. A recent eviction notice from the Department of Justice informed them that they will be moved to alternative accommodation on August 29, with promises that letters would be sent outlining the locations of that new accommodation.
Yet, as of now, they do not know when this letter will arrive or whether they will be relocated within Cork. The centre currently houses 123 residents, with nine children attending primary school and 14 in local secondary schools, 25 elderly people, and five residents with disabilities.
This abrupt eviction would be grossly insensitive in any context, but it should be borne in mind that those in Millstreet — like their compatriots in similar situations around Ireland — are there because of a war being waged in their homeland, a conflict which has left thousands dead and maimed and has destroyed swathes of their country.
Fiona Corcoran, from The Greater Chernobyl Cause charity, told this newspaper: “I have seen first hand the deep gratitude these individuals have for Ireland and specifically for the community of Millstreet, which welcomed them with open arms.
They deserve better than an impersonal announcement telling them they are to be moved again.
Readers may have seen yesterday that Ireland South MEP Seán Kelly is considering a run for the presidency.
“I haven’t made a decision, but I met Simon Harris and John Carroll a couple of weeks ago just to find out what the thinking was,” Mr Kelly, a former president of the GAA, said.
He joins an increasingly inclusive club of politicians and prominent citizens who have been linked to Áras an Uachtaráin.
At various times, this club has included former European commissioner Mairead McGuinness, former minister Heather Humphreys, former MEP Frances Fitzgerald, Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill, former SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, GAA president Jarlath Burns, senator Frances Black, former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, convicted criminal Conor McGregor, and a host of minor celebrities far too numerous to list.
It has been entertaining to watch the delicate balancing act pursued by many of those named as they seek to indicate a general interest in the position without revealing a deep hunger for the title.
That balancing act has been more successful for some, while others may have already found that estimates of their appeal to the population at large are somewhat overstated.
Whether any of those candidates can replicate the popularity of the incumbent among the general public, of course, remains to be seen.
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