Senior Economist Dan O’Brien has said that, in 2022 alone, the foreign population of Ireland rose by a quarter of a million – and that most people feel immigration has gone too far, and is having negative effects.
Speaking on the Brendan O’Connor show on RTÉ on Saturday last, O’Brien, who is the Chief Economist with the Institute of International and European Affairs, said that the latest figures from Eurostat showed that, in 2022 alone, the foreign population of Ireland rose by a quarter of a million “at a time when there is a housing crisis”.
He said this was his hunch was that people feel immigration has gone too far and is having negative effects.
“For too long in this country, we have had this thing where we cannot say there’s any negative or downsides from immigration. There is, There are: we need to be honest about that,” he said. “Immigration has many positive effects; it has some negative effects – and when it gets to big, big numbers like a quarter of a million people, then it has big negative effects.”
“My hunch is that this surge in immigration is the main thing that’s causing this unsettlement,” he said referring to the question by presenter Brendan O’Connor about the disconnect between voters and ‘the powers that be’.
"In 2022 alone the foreign population of Ireland rose by a quarter of a million.. my hunch is it's gone too far"
Dan O’Brien, Chief Economist, Institute of International and European Affairs pic.twitter.com/NqemDxHZei
— Irishman (@IrishmanIRL) March 31, 2024
Journalist Mick Clifford insisted that opposition to immigration was only expressed in Ireland in concern about asylum seekers and the problems accommodating them, saying the number of asylum seekers was a “tiny number” in “a state of five million” people.
He claimed that the expression of ‘resentment’ to immigration in general in Ireland was only from those with “far-right views”.
Dan O’Brien said that opinion polls had shown that when people are asked ‘is there too much immigration?’, large numbers of people are saying “there is” – and that anyone who had raised the issue of the downsides of immigration was immediately shouted down as being a member of the “far-right”.
“That’s stupid,” he said. “it is stupid. Immigration is a complex social phenomenon with upsides and downsides, and the notion that a quarter of a million people coming in a single year is not going to exacerbate the housing crisis, which most of us agree is the number one issue, is just silly.”