As the recent preliminary census figures confirmed, Ireland has gone from being a country of emigration to one of net immigration. These immigrants include returning Irish, EU and non-EU workers invited here to fill skills shortages, students and people fleeing persecution. The transition to being a host country rather than exclusively an exporter of people has been rapid.
It is estimated that there are currently some 160 nationalities living in Ireland. Some 44,000 asylum-seekers have made applications for refugee status here since 1996. Non-EU foreign workers are arriving on work permits to take up jobs - in catering, agriculture and fisheries and the service sector - which employers are obliged to show they cannot find Irish or EU nationals to fill. Higher skilled recruits who come on two-year work visas include nurses from South Africa and the Philippines and IT professionals from the Asian sub-continent.
While many foreign workers or students aspire eventually to return home, it is inevitable that a proportion of these immigrants will make Ireland their permanent home. The signs of this diversity are everywhere and some of the larger groups have opened shops, formed churches and set up publications catering for the needs of their communities. The recent Different Voices feature series in this paper looked at some of the main nationality groups currently living in Ireland, from Chinese language students to Eastern European workers. It was an effort to give a voice to these new people and to break down the barriers between "them" and "us".
While many people welcome these different voices, others feel threatened and find the pace of change unsettling. There is an erroneous perception that the newcomers by their very presence are responsible for the ugly manifestations of racism and discrimination which we have witnessed in recent years. The tendency to blame immigrants for our own shortcomings is disturbing. While the government has put in place structures and systems to receive and handle newcomers, whether they are asylum-seekers or migrant workers, the integration or orientation of most immigrants has been left largely to community and church groups or the migrants themselves. The support and goodwill of voluntary organisations is heartening, but it is not enough. At a political level, we need concerted leadership and a move away from the ad hoc systems that currently exist to a more coherent immigration policy.