Earlier today, Independent Ireland TD Richard O’Donoghue said something outside Dáil Eireann, drawing an angry reaction from some of his fellow TDs, and some members of the media. Here is the account of his remarks from our colleagues over at The Journal:
“A LIMERICK TD has been heavily criticised for comments he made arguing that Irish people risk becoming a “minority” in Ireland.
Independent Ireland TD Richard O’Donoghue made the comments on the plinth at Leinster House today in the context of the presidential election.
His claim that “Irish people here could end up being a minority in years to come” has been branded a “dog whistle” and “dangerous” by other TDs.
O’Donoghue stated that his party wants to support a candidate for the forthcoming presidential election who “supports our culture in this country, that it’s not obliterated”.
“We welcome other cultures in here, and we do that 100%, but we also want to make sure the Irish culture is recognised and set in stone for the future,” he said.”
In response, as The Journal reported, O’Donoghue was accused of making a “concerning” remark by Jennifer Whitmore of the Social Democrats, who said that his remark was “ridiculous” and “untrue”. Her party colleague Rory Hearne said the comments could “fuel racism”. And People before Profit accused O’Donoghue of “dog whistling”, which essentially means making comments that would be positively received by extremists while sounding innocuous to everybody else.
The bigger and more interesting question is whether O’Donoghue has a point. For that, we need only look at the state’s official population projections.
The Central Statistics Office in Ireland produced, not very long ago, a population projection for Ireland from 2022 up to the year 2057. There were three scenarios they looked at: High migration, medium migration, and low migration. It is worth noting that over the first three years of that projection, immigration has actually exceeded the “high migration” scenario. Were those figures to hold, the “high migration” scenario (M1 in the graph below) would be an undercount:
That “M1” scenario projects that by 2057, the Irish population will reach just over 7 million people compared to the 5million in the country in 2022. The total population increase will be in the order of 1.9 million people. Of that, 1.6million of the additional people will come from increased immigration.
Of the people resident in Ireland today, the Central Statistics Office reckons that 80% of people were born in Ireland, with 20% – one in five – born overseas. Note that this figure does not account for people born overseas who later became Irish citizens. It is a crude, but I think useful measurement of the origin of our population. In rough terms then, we currently have about one million people out of five million who were not born here. The majority of those people, I think it is fair to say, were not born “Irish” in the traditional sense.
If we look at the M1 population projection, and take it at face value, then we would have in rough terms some 2.6million people out of 7 million who were not born here and arrived as a result of immigration. This would take the country, by 2057, to a position where 37% of people living here were either not born here or are the children of people not born here.
There are other factors here to consider. Three in particular: The first is that to date, the M1 scenario has proven too conservative in terms of the number of people coming here. The second is that marginal differences in birth rates between the “born here” and “not born here” groups by 2057 could make a huge difference.
The third is that history is not due to stop in 2057, and the trend is inexorable: We will have gone from 20% of the population or their parents originating outside Ireland to 37% in just 34 years. If that rate were to continue (admittedly an “if”), then the 50% barrier would be crossed sometime in the mid 2070’s, which is just outside my expected lifespan but certainly not outside the lifespan of a teenager in Ireland today.
What did O’Donoghue actually say? He said “Irish people could become a minority here in years to come”.
Is he wrong, based on the data? I think it is very hard to argue that he is, but there are three caveats.
The first is that it all comes down to how you count “Irish”. For example, is the grandchild of somebody who came here from Nigeria in 2010, and lives in Ireland in 2070, “Irish”? How you answer that question is essential to whether O’Donoghue is “right” or not. Readers may well have different answers to it.
Second, there is no guarantee that events in 2025 will be the same as events in 2035: Even without Government action, external immigration may slow. Or, of course, it may also speed up. Global events cannot be predicted with such confidence, which is the whole reason that the Central Statistics Office has come up with three scenarios rather than one.
Third, there is the question of how much you care about what Ireland looks like in the 2070s. If that assertion insults you, remember that most people do not think much about the world beyond their own lifetimes, to the eternal frustration of climate change campaigners. There’s a section of the population who will regard discussion of the composition of the Irish population in the 2070s as an absurd irrelevance.
But even with those caveats, I do not think it can be said that what Deputy O’Donoghue said was either unreasonable or baseless. The trends in relation to the makeup of the Irish population are inexorable and accelerating. What’s more, I think a great many voters know it, because they have eyes and ears.
As for the media: It might be better to look at the facts when it comes to stories like this, rather than rushing to shove a microphone into a left-wing politician’s face looking for a condemnatory statement. That strategy will only serve for so long.
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