Irish people will have to adapt their sense of nationality to include migrants if we are to integrate immigrants successfully into society, the UN's special representative on migration, Peter Sutherland, said yesterday.
He said Irish people were one of the most patriotic in Europe, a sense which was based on a distinct feeling of identity, homogeneity and shared experience.
However, negative opinion polls on migration and immigration may by the result of people fearing we will lose our identity in the face of a multicultural society, Mr Sutherland said.
"We have to adapt our sense of nationality, which we all feel so proud of, and have to recognise that multiculturalism is part of the future," he said. "Perhaps some of the negative opinion polls which one reads about migration are the result of a sense that we will lose our identity."
He added: "We have to learn that our identity has to be adapted to recognise that we are becoming, and will be, a society with others in it. It is a big challenge. And no amount of talking about the undoubted economic benefits to us, as well as to migrants, can overcome this fact. We have a challenge to change people's mentality. And it's a European challenge."
Mr Sutherland said countries such as the US and Australia, which were founded on a society of immigrants, did not have to grapple with this issue to the same extent as European countries such as Ireland
Mr Sutherland was speaking at the publication of a policy document on migration by the Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland (MRCI).
The report, Realising Integration, identifies a number of barriers faced by migrant workers on a daily basis in relation to their economic, social, political and cultural inclusion. These include:
a lack of automatic rights for migrants to bring their families into the State with them. It recommends a statutory entitlement to family reunification for migrants;
difficulties among migrant workers in accessing language-appropriate information on their rights and entitlements, especially those in more vulnerable settings;
patchy availability of interpretation services for public services such as health, justice and education.
The MRCI's director, Siobhán O'Donoghue, said it was time to move beyond rhetoric and address the issues surrounding integration.
"If integration is to become a reality it must be facilitated and resourced. It will not happen automatically and will need political leadership."
She said some recent steps by the Government were not encouraging, such as the publication of the scheme for a new Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill, which did not address the issue of integration in a serious way.
Anastasia Crickley, chairwoman of the EU Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, said Government policies must reflect a real commitment to integration rather than assimilation, or at best insertion, of migrant workers in an evolving Irish identity and society.
"We know what it means to be left on the outside," she said, in reference to Ireland's history of emigration.
Mr Sutherland also said opting out of a multicultural society was not an option in an increasingly globalised world.