A disturbing report on the relatively poor mental and physical health of Irish people in Britain raises many questions about the pattern of emigration between these islands, the cultural and ethnic character of the Irish population there, and how best their welfare can be addressed through the peace process. Research findings reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry show that mortality rates of Irish-born people exceed those of all residents of England and Wales by some 30 per cent for men and 20 per cent for women, and that these rates continue in the British-born children of Irish migrants. Irish people there have the highest rates of mental hospitalisation and were more than twice as likely as the native-born to be hospitalised for some forms of psychological distress, including schizophrenia, depression, neuroses, and personality disorders. For alcohol-related disorders Irish men are nine times and women seven times more likely to suffer than the English-born. Overall hospitalisation rates for Irish people are far higher than for the African-Caribbean group of immigrants. Rates for suicide are similarly very high. The evidence does not suggest these rates are simply extrapolated from Ireland to Britain, nor that the Irish in North America are afflicted in the same way. The report raises the question whether the social circumstances of Irish people in Britain is sufficient to explain these patterns and says this is not so, despite the evidence that poor housing, homelessness and unskilled work on building sites characterise many migrants' lives. It concludes that cultural as well as socioeconomic issues are relevant and that there is a strong case to take ethnic factors fully into account, because the Irish experience of colonialism and racism makes them distinctive among Britain's white population. Separate research on this question for the Commission on Racial Equality has raised the policy issue of whether Irish people should be protected by the antiracist legislation on Britain's statute books. If this were so, the question arises as to whether they are an ethnic minority or an assimilating group in British society.
Strand 3 of the Northern Ireland peace process deals with East-West issues between these islands. Migration is one of the most important of them. Seventy per cent of Irish voyages overseas are to or through Britain, and this Common Travel Area has been taken fully into account by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which gives Ireland and Britain an opt-out from the Schengen free travel area in Europe to protect Britain's maintenance of its border controls. Despite Ireland's growth and development in recent years many thousands of unskilled people continue to go to Britain each year. The 2.5 million first- and second-generation Irish people there make this community the largest migrant minority in western Europe, as the Irish in Britain have been the greatest source of such labour for its industrialisation.
Their welfare should be an important element in the East-West negotiations and the structures they set up. The traditional attitude that migration has rid the Government of responsibility needs to be comprehensively re-examined. It is clear from this research that parity of esteem is as relevant in the East-West as in the Northern Ireland context. A settlement intended to deal with the totality of relationships between these islands would look threadbare indeed were it not capable of addressing such disadvantage generously and sympathetically.