Trinity debate centres on migration benefits

Students from Trinity College Dublin and Harvard University last night debated whether mass migration was beneficial for labour markets, in the first debate of its kind organised between the two universities.

At the debate, chaired by US ambassador Thomas C Foley, Trinity students argued that countries in the developed world needed mass migration to avert a crisis caused by an rapidly ageing population.

Christopher Kissane, an economics student at Trinity, said age-dependency ratios in developed countries would continue to worsen unless they received large-scale migration of younger people.

"Research indicates that, on current trends, pensioners could account for between 30 and 40 per cent of the population in many developed countries in 50 years time," he said. "There simply won't be enough people to support older people."

Mr Kissane also said recent economic evidence in the US and Ireland showed that countries which took in large numbers of migrants experienced the largest jobs growth. "If anyone wants to compete in a globalised economy, they will have to accept mass migration as part of economic growth," he added.

Opposing the motion, Harvard students argued that large-scale migration could be unsustainable - both for the countries sending and receiving migrants.

Cormac Early, a student at Harvard originally from Co Waterford, said: "Mass migration can be damaging to countries sending migrants, in various ways, such as making them dependent on remittances rather than export industries and hindering the kind of growth that would allow people to remain in their home countries."

Mr Early also said large-scale migration tended to distort labour markets, with migrants moving to industries featuring their ethnic groups, rather than where the labour is needed.

"For example, you have a lot of Asian laundries in parts of the US, yet the market may not demand this. You also have people over-qualified for the work they do, such as Polish doctors or lawyers driving buses or taxis."

Last night's debate, hosted by Trinity's Social Economic Review, was adjudicated on by a panel which included Senator Shane Ross.