Economist Sinéad O’Sullivan has warned that Irish workers and graduates could face downward pressure on wages and reduced bargaining power as a result of migration flows associated with a prospective EU–India free trade agreement.
The remarks come despite confirmation from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to Gript that the government is not currently reviewing work permit rules in response to the deal.
O’Sullivan made the observation both on her personal Substack and in the course of a David McWilliams podcast describing how Ireland’s common law background, anglophone business culture, and presence of tech giants made it particularly exposed out of all of the EU member states to disproportionate visa applications from India.
“India has the largest surplus of young, educated, English-speaking professionals on earth, and the provisions for these people to be allowed to move into the EU was India’s central demand in return for the EU being able to access a new market of 1.4 billion consumers,” O’Sullivan told her readers as she questioned the Irish state’s ability to cater to the demand in infrastructure.
She noted that while “the middle and professional class were largely insulated” from the “negative consequences of immigration” until now, “that insulation is about to end”.
A London-based Head of Strategy at Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness O’Sullivan has come to prominence the past month for her writings on infrastructure deficits – including analysis of the impact of mass migration.
“The pipeline of Indian tech talent is already open; this deal just makes it faster, at precisely the moment when the US is making H-1B visas harder to get, turning Europe into the obvious alternative and Ireland into the front door,” she said – naming the various mechanisms the Irish government has to mitigate a surge in Indian visa applications including raising the eligibility requirements regarding salaries.
“The result is not that Irish professionals will be fired overnight, but that the floor will drop out gradually as salaries flatten and the ability of Irish workers to negotiate erodes,” O’Sullivan went out to explain to her readers adding that Irish graduates in particular will be impacted.
And she didn’t hold back in what the middle-class should expect, saying: “Well, in short, it’s that the middle class is about to experience what the working class has experienced for years: brutal competition for their livelihood in a system designed by employers, enthusiastically endorsed by the Irish state, and built without any institutional framework to manage the consequences.”
While the trade agreement itself creates no formal migration obligation, parallel EU initiatives such as the European Legal Gateway Office and “talent partnerships” are expected to increase applications into Ireland’s permit and visa system well before the deal is fully implemented from around 2027 onward.
Earlier this month Gript carried comments by the Department that the “the [free trade agreement] does not create any obligation on Ireland to grant Indian citizens access to the Irish labour market,“ despite missions by Ministers Jack Chambers and James Lawless aimed at attracting Indian students and workers to Ireland.
The Department also claimed in response to fresh inquiries that this was not altered by “the conclusion of free trade agreements, including the EU–India Free Trade Agreement,” adding that the government has so far not opted into the various ‘voluntary measures’ outlined in the Free Trade Deal.
This sentiment was echoed by the Department of Housing when asked by Gript about whether the government was factoring in a potential uptick in Indian migrations in any housing projections explaining that while the state’s “Delivering Homes, Building Communities” plan included migration no specific updates had been inserted to cope with the potential impact of the free trade deal.
Separately, in the Oireachtas, Independent TD Carol Nolan pressed the Departments of Justice and Enterprise on exact preparations for the EU-India free trade deal and the processing capacity of the state, as Minister O’Callaghan opened up the door for non-EU visa applicants from India after 12 months in response to the question.
Earlier this month, Gript revealed that neither the Department of Housing or Revenue maintained nationality figures on its Help to Buy and similar schemes for first time buyers amid claims that first time buyer schemes were being abused by non-nationals.
With over 13,000 employment permits issued to Indian nationals in 2024 alone, India has become Ireland’s single largest source of non-EU labour migration, driven by post-Brexit labour shortages, aggressive international student recruitment, and Ireland’s growing role as an English-speaking gateway into the wider EU economy.
While department press offices insist to Gript that the EU–India deal creates no formal obligation to expand migration, the practical direction of policy across Enterprise, Justice, and Higher Education as well as ministerial lobbying in India itself nevermind post-Brexit trends suggests the state is nonetheless preparing for continued growth in Indian inflows over the coming years.