DUBLIN — You know things have changed utterly when you see a major story in an Irish newspaper about illegal or undocumented workers and the need to deal with the issue. No, the stories are not describing the Irish undocumented in America. Rather, they are talking about undocumented workers in Ireland. Trade Union leader David Begg called for “a fair way to treat illegals” in a letter to the Justice Minister Brian Lenihan last month.
Begg claimed there were “many thousand” of undocumented workers, and the situation was desperate for many of them. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
“There is no benefit whatever in Ireland denying the presence of undocumented workers,” Begg told the government, claiming the presence of so many illegals meant Ireland was creating “an exploited working underclass.”
This is precisely the case in America of course, and we can only hope that Irish legislators have the gumption to address the problem that Congress has so far miserably failed to do so in comprehensive fashion.
There is no doubt that immigration into Ireland is on the lips of many here. As the economy weakens you hear more and more talk about foreign labor undercutting the Irish workers and a tinge of resentment deepening.
This is dangerous ground, something Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern and his government to their credit has recognized. Recently they appointed a minister for integration, ironically Conor Lenihan, the brother of the justice minister whose task is to deport many of those same immigrants.
John Spain wrote in this paper last week about the brouhaha over the Sikh who was denied the right to wear his turban when he joined the Irish auxiliary police. The move was approved by most Irish and was yet another indication that efforts to integrate the huge influx of emigrants over the past few years has begun to falter somewhat.
Ireland has to be careful. They need only look across the pond to Britain, where large ghettos of never absorbed immigrants feature in major cities, causing huge problems for the immigrants and for the cohesion of society as a whole.
Begg said he had been made aware of the problems of a large number of Brazilian migrant workers who came to work in meat processing plants and had run out of status. He stated a regularization scheme was needed “if a growing underclass of workers in an irregular situation who are vulnerable to exploitation is not to be created.”
The government recently launched a research project to try and discover how many undocumented are living in Ireland. Numbers vary widely but consider this — the recent census showed that the number of Chinese immigrants in Ireland was a mere 11,000.
Some migrant worker advocates, however, believe the number is closer to 100,000 and that there are up to 90,000 working in the underground economy.
It certainly seems, in Dublin at least, that every second accent you hear is either Eastern European, Chinese or Western European. I took a stroll down Grafton Street on Monday and heard only an occasional Irish accent on the way. Multicultural Ireland is here to stay.
How the Irish deal with that remains an open question. The genius of America is that each arriving generation feels an opportunity to carve their American, dream yet feel no compunction to part with the customs they brought with them. By the second generation the melting pot has begun to take effect.
Ireland is currently more aligned to a European model which has not worked in many countries, most notably Germany, where Turkish migrant workers are the focus of much bitterness and racial clashes.
The Irish version of the American dream, of being a stakeholder in a society that has room for them as well as everyone else is the best model around.
As in America, the overwhelming number of new arrivals merely seek a chance at a better life and are prepared to work hard to achieve it.
Integration will come in time, but how long will depend on a cohesive and sophisticated government response to issues such as the numbers of undocumented living in Ireland. That may prove no easy task.