Last week the Department of Finance published a document entitled Future Forty which contains an analysis of likely demographic trends over the next four decades.
These trends have been identified by myself and others going back quite a few years when the State was clearly under-estimating the level of inward migration or downplaying it – a factor which as has been pointed out made nonsense of much of their own ‘planning’ with regards to housing and other provisions.
Now it appears that they are owning the process and there is an acceptance – unique I think for any developed western state that the “indigenous population” – as Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan recently described us recently when asked about the flying of flags – is inexorably in decline.
It is worth looking behind the Government press release to see what the rationale for such acceptance is: that we are aging as a people and need lots of younger immigrants to pay our pensions. This contradicts the United Nations own view of migration and demographic change in a 2000 report entitled – in case you missed the point – Replacement Migration: Is it a Solution to Declining and Aging Populations?
The UN report concluded that “immigration is not a realistic solution to demographic ageing.” The main and obvious reason for that is because “immigrants adopt the low fertility of a host population.”
Rather, the government’s rationale is about sustaining a labour force which mostly works and will increasingly work for overseas companies. The pensions thing is a bit of a gas illumined red herring, if you ask me.
For example, in the third paragraph of the introduction to the Department of Finance report it is declared that: “Immigration has the potential to offset some of these demographic challenges by boosting the working-age population and filling critical skills gaps. In turn, this can contribute to improved economic growth, innovation and productivity.”
Even more starkly the report goes on to state that: “Migration appears to be the sole driver of labour force growth in the long run. Ensuring provision of services and infrastructure keeps pace with demographic trends is essential for maintaining Ireland’s appeal as a destination for highly skilled international talent.”
So now we know where we stand. The Irish state is no more than a resource, a destination, for people who wish to make money here, and most of them – and in future the overwhelming number of their employees as we are told by the Department of Finance – are overseas corporations.
The report also makes clear that it will be a requirement “to prepare contingency plans for a high-case migration scenario to avoid potential infrastructure bottlenecks constraining growth. These plans should include details on when to activate specific actions to respond to higher levels of migration and boost infrastructure capacity.”
Effectively then the Irish State plan is no more than a function of the labour demands of mostly overseas corporations. This even trumps another Golden Calf of our administrative elite: Climate Change.
For we are told that: “Targets under Ireland’s Climate Action Plan, for example, have created unprecedented demand for roles in construction, engineering and retrofitting.” Whatever happened to the ‘Carbon Footprint’ and that it would be best if people travelled as little as possible? Do immigrants not use electricity and transport and plastic and breathe? Not to mention that the “unprecedented demand” for everything is inextricably linked to immigration numbers.
The report makes no estimate of what proportion of the population of the state will have been born overseas by 2065 but recent, current and future trends – now accepted by the State – is that over 90% of population growth will be made up of immigrants. Given that the current proportion of persons born overseas is close to a quarter, it is reasonable to predict that this will be approaching half within 40 years.
The report reminds us that the current and likely future birth rate is below replacement. However, that does not tell us the full story. Statistics on births show not only that the overall number of births has fallen sharply since 2000 but that the number, and proportion, of births to Irish mothers has fallen even more sharply.
One of the key factors in this has been the net migration of younger Irish people. The Department report shows that not only has “net migration of Irish nationals … once again turned negative” but that 70,000 more Irish people have left the State since 2006 than have returned (Figure 17, p29.) According to the report emigration is “remaining stubbornly high despite an improving economic landscape.” Which begs the question for whose benefit is the “improving economic landscape?”
The impact of the emigration of young Irish people can be seen starkly in the birth statistics. Between 2011 and the first quarter of 2025 there have been 887,748 births registered within the state. Of that number, 76.6% were born to Irish mothers, defined as persons who have Irish citizenship.
That proportion has fallen steeply over that period: From 77% in 2011 to 71% in the first quarter of 2025. If we take the most recent figures and make the same calculation based on the difference between the number of people actually born overseas and the number of people born overseas who have subsequently acquired Irish citizenship the proportion of births to mothers who were born overseas must now be close to 40% of all births.
Meanwhile, on Monday another 6,000 people from 138 countries “choose to be Irish” according to Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe whose Department put together the report on where all of this is going. RTÉ reported that one of the ‘New Irish’ told them that “Now I can go anywhere in the Schengen area, any of the European countries, so that feels very good.” The very definition of Irishness is it not?