One of the striking statistics from the recently published Census 2022 data is the number of people who failed to state which nationality they were, or which citizenship they held, on their form.
This had more than doubled to over 169,000 from the 71,933 who chose that option in 2016. And is over three times the 53.781 who did so in 2011.
It is difficult to know what the reason for this might be, other than it reflects the overall increased number of people now living within the Irish state who are of other than Irish nationality. There have also of course been more than 120,000 grantings of citizenship to non-nationals.
Perhaps it would be unkind to describe last week’s report of 12% being of other than Irish citizenship as a “massaging” or an attempt to conceal the true level of inward migration, but what it does amount to putting forward an inaccurate picture of the demographic makeup of the state.
The facts as we reported from the Census breakdown of all the pertinent statistics on nationality, citizenship and place of birth is that just over one million people who are living in the Irish Republic were born elsewhere. That amounts to 20% of the population. Indeed, that figure is now higher than it was given the more recent large intakes of refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere.
A look at some of the data on particular national groups would suggest that they were especially prone to avoiding answering that question. For example, in the breakdown of citizens there is no figure for dual citizens of Georgia and Ireland and just 1,180 described themselves as Georgian citizens.
This despite the fact that according to the last figure from IPAS that they were providing accommodation for 3,680 people from Georgia who have claimed asylum here. 5,115 Georgians have been issued with a PPS number since 2017 and yet just 51 persons from Georgia have been issued with work permits over the same period.
That is just one of the lacunae that can be detected when one delves further into the official statistics on immigration, and compare the figures found in the different sources. The discrepancies also call into question the extent to which there are significant numbers of people who have come here who have no official presence, or at least not one that they would wish to be advertising to their friendly Census enumerator or to anyone else.
The tables found on the Census 2022 site also shed much light on the regional imbalances which exist. It is evident that most immigrants who come to Ireland for work or for other reasons tend to settle in the major cities and towns. Indeed, it is clear that within cities like Dublin and Cork that particular parts are where a greater preponderance of immigrants reside.
The state’s attempt to socially engineer a better spread of refugees is perhaps designed to counteract that. It is unlikely, however, to survive the ending Direct Provision and the dispersal of residents who will also flock to the urban centres.
In the entire city and county of Dublin, 27% of those who completed a Census form in 2022 were of nationalities other than Irish. The foreign born population of London was 40% in 2022 but the proportion of people born outside of England and Wales was lower than here at 16.8%. In Germany the figure was 13% in 2021. In France it was 12.5% and Italy 10.5%.
That ranged from 35% within the Dublin City Council area to 23% in Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown. There are parts of Dublin inner and south inner city and of north county Dublin where the proportion of immigrants is much higher, and most likely over half of residents.
Outside of Dublin the highest proportion was in Galway city at 33%. The lowest within the state were Leitrim with 18% and Offaly with 16%.
The attraction of migrants to the large urban centres of course also adds to problems regarding housing and other provisions, and in general undermines any aspiration in the National Development Plan and Project 2040 to ensure a greater regional spread to counteract in particular the disproportional growth of Dublin and indeed the commuter belt which has moved into neighbouring counties.