A reply to Parliamentary Questions from Offaly Independent TD Carol Nolan shows that almost a third of those claiming long term unemployment benefit are non-Irish nationals.
Deputy Nolan had also requested information on the employment status of persons who had been granted Irish citizenship and specifically “the number of adults who were granted citizenship from 2020 to date in 2025 currently in receipt of either jobseekers benefit or jobseekers allowance”, but that wasn’t available.
The Minister said that the Department of Social Protection does not hold data on citizenship but he was able to provide statistics on the number of nationalities other than Irish in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance and Jobseeker’s Benefit at the end of April.
These show that of the 135,567 people claiming unemployment payments that 29% were of “other nationalities.” It is not clear from the Minister’s response whether that refers to people who are citizens of other countries or to all people who were born outside of the state.
The proportion of people of other nationalities claiming long term unemployment payments through Jobseeker’s Allowance is even higher at 31%. Which means that almost one third of the long-term unemployed in the state are non-Irish people.
The CSO says that Census 2022 recorded that 12% of the population are non-Irish citizens living in Ireland, though its data also shows that some 22% of the population are persons born outside of the state.
The statistics in the response to Carol Nolan also cast a rather different light on the narrative that immigration is both an unqualified benefit to the country and that the vast majority of adult non-nationals are working. Clearly they are not, and it would be interesting to see an analysis of the impact which this has on state revenues and expenditure.
Commenting on the findings, Carol Nolan said: “These statistics are the latest indication of the enormous and unsustainable financial burden being borne by the state. We need to cop ourselves on. While the UK and others are coming round to the idea of radical reform in this area, Ireland continues to lag behind with systems ripe for exploitation.”