While Bertie Ahern’s comments on immigration, as covertly recorded during a canvass, may have come as a shock to some, they are regularly heard as part of conversation in Dublin and other parts of the country.
On several occasions I have been on buses where people – usually of my own vintage or older – have remarked on the demographics of the payload. Not in offensive or aggressive terms: usually on the lines of “You wouldn’t know where you are these days.”
The bus I normally use travels through part of the north inner city and beyond to parts of the burgeoning apartment block mini-villages that have sprung up on the outskirts of Finglas. The demographic snapshot provided by Transport For Ireland is reflected in what statistical information we have of the actual demographics of these parts of Dublin.
And it must be stressed that the information we rely on currently dates to the 2022 Census. Much has changed in the four years since then and the proportion of persons born outside of the State must be closer to 25% now than the 19% officially registered in April 2022.
Both figures will have been, and are, significantly higher for the parts of Dublin to which I refer. That no one is supposed to notice or to pass any remarks – other than of course how everyone who comes here is almost by default The Best of Us once their feet magically touch Irish soil – is an attempt to distort reality.
Bertie, apparently, was knocking doors in a part of the North Inner City local electoral area which is almost completely within the Dublin Central constituency.
An indication of why immigration might be regarded as an issue in this part of Dublin is that between 2016 and 2022 the proportion of those living in the north inner city born outside of the State rose from 40% to more than 47%.
That period included the years of the Covid restrictions when entry into the State fell. It excludes the four years since which have witnessed a huge increase in the immigration levels that were partly reflected in the 2022 Census.
The proportion of persons born overseas living in the north inner city is certain to be over 50% now, and perhaps significantly so given the changes since 2022. Which means that less than half of the people who live in the heart of the Capital city – the location of the GPO and Croke Park with their centrality in the national psyche – are Irish by birth.
And that is to exclude those born here but whose primary identity may be with the homeplace or ethnicity of their parents rather than with what used to be understood even in the broadest sense as ‘Irish.’
The other Local Election Area that is mostly within the bounds of Dublin Central is Cabra/Glasnevin. That includes the large older working class estates as well as most of the more affluent middle class suburbs.
There is a striking demographic difference between those parts of the constituency and the north inner city. The proportion of persons born overseas in the Cabra/Glasnevin LED was 28% in 2022. Still much higher than the State average but significantly lower than the inner parts of Dublin and the outlying north county new settlements.
The difference is even more evident when one compares the demographics of middle class suburbs to parts of the inner city not much more than a mile away. In 2016, the proportion of the population of the Botanic C ward born overseas was 25%. That had risen to 29% in 2022.
By contrast the proportion of those living in the Mountjoy B electoral division which is part of the same constituency who were born overseas was 61% in the last Census. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that it will be ten points higher in the next Census.
It is part of the north city that you might traverse on your way to Croke Park on a match day. The optical contrast between the crowds and participants inside the stadium and the areas surrounding it could hardly be more striking.
That is why there are conversations such as the one in which the former Taoiseach took part in. However, apart from the dumping on the Bert, you would imagine that it is an issue that barely gets a mention on the doors.
I heard PBP candidate Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin on Tús Áite a few days ago attempt not entirely convincingly to assure Fachtna that nothing similar to the content of the Ahern tape had ever been broached to him. He eventually did claim that either he might have forgotten about them or that they took place too long ago to recall. Which might explain why he came in at around 3%.
Mind you, the leading contestant, Janice Boylan, has also been noted as saying that immigration might have been an issue in the local elections but now ‘bread and butter’ was to the fore. Of course she may not have factored in that her own party has put in place a complete Potemkin Village reconstruction of its immigration PR since then.
The candidate most identified with a position critical of the impact of immigration is Malachy Steenson who is on 7% according to that sample. He is facing several obstacles, among them that there are a large number of persons entitled to vote on the basis that they have acquired citizenship since moving to Ireland.
He is also, given geographical factors and the absurd notion that Gerry Hutch is some sort of populist man of the people, greatly impacted by the Hutch circus. Hutch will take a significant slice of the votes of inner city Dubs who are incoherently seeking a means of expressing their feelings., but he has no hope of winning.
More reflection might lead to the conclusion that their chosen tribune is hardly any better than those he seeks to replace. He won’t win for the simple reason that there are far more people motivated to ensure that their vote elects someone else other than Hutch. In working class areas that will boost the Boylan vote.
Among middle class voters there appears to be no main focus unless that, ironically, is Ennis the Soc Dem who might also benefit more than others from what will probably be a smaller than usual Hutch transfer. Hutch remained in to the end in the general election but I seem to recall that there were higher than usual ‘plumpers’, a vote for himself with no preference.
The poll is not much of a clue to who will win other than it seems that it is between Boylan, Ennis and maybe MacAdam. The sample was small enough at just over 650 and there was more than a week left when it was taken so some game changer might pop out.