THE NUMBER of Poles registering to work or to apply for welfare services in the Republic fell by 40 per cent in the first quarter of the year, new figures show.
In the three months to the end of March this year 1,815 Polish nationals were issued with PPS numbers by the Department of Social Welfare, down from 4,443 during the same period in 2009.
This downward trend in immigration is mirrored by nationals from other States, which have over the past six years supplied about half a million migrant workers to fuel the Irish economy.
The number of British people allocated PPS numbers in the first quarter fell to 1,765, down from 2,276 a year earlier. The number of Brazilians given PPS numbers also fell to 1,011, down from 1,045.
Lithuania was the only country to buck the general trend in falling migration with the number of its citizens receiving PPS numbers rising to 889, up from 868 people.
The number of Latvians allocated PPS numbers fell to 856 in the first quarter, down from 879 in the first three months last year.
James Wickham, director of the employment research centre at Trinity College Dublin, said the sharp drop in the number of migrants arriving in Ireland from Poland and elsewhere reflected the changed economic situation.
Irish unemployment has risen steadily over the past three years, reaching 13 per cent in March, reducing the number of employment opportunities for migrants.
But he said the fact that 1,815 people applied for PPS numbers from Poland indicates immigration is continuing during the recession despite the difficult economy.
“Ireland’s experience of immigration from the new member states is qualitatively different to immigration to the ‘old’ immigrant countries such as Britain, France, Germany in the second half of the last century,” he said.
“East-West migration has become more transient than previous European immigration. This is facilitated by a free movement regime that entails the possibility to frequently cross borders and new and cheap travel opportunities, in particular air travel.”
Mr Wickham said the rise in migrants from Lithuania reflected the poor state of the economy in the Baltic state, which has suffered badly during the recession.
“Clearly the explanation is the very different economic situations in the two countries, with unemployment much higher in Lithuania than Poland,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the Immigrant Council of Ireland said it was not surprising that the number of PPS numbers allocated had fallen due to the economic climate in the Republic. But she said the figures showed migrants were still arriving in Ireland for the purpose of family reunification or to fill jobs that Irish people couldn’t fill.