Immigration:One in 10 people living in Ireland will soon be a foreign national, the latest official population figures indicate.
With immigration rising to record levels, Ireland faces a dramatic change in its population composition as the number of foreign nationals living in the State approaches 400,000.
CSO senior statistician Aidan Punch said the latest statistics indicated an increase of 40 per cent in the "stock" of foreign nationals between April 2002 and April 2005. He estimated they now accounted for 8 to 9 per cent of the population of 4.13 million.
Foreign nationals - defined as people who don't describe themselves as "Irish" in official surveys - accounted for 5.8 per cent of the population, or 240,000 people, in the 2002 Census. Almost half of such individuals were UK nationals. Mr Punch estimated about 350,000 foreign nationals in the population now.
He was commenting following the publication yesterday of the latest CSO population and migration estimates, covering the period to April 2005.
The study showed more than one-third of immigrants to Ireland in the 12 months to that date came from the new EU accession states. Some 17 per cent of immigrants were from Poland, while 9 per cent were from Lithuania.
A total of 26,400 immigrants from the 10 EU accession states were said to have come to Ireland in the 12 months after the union's enlargement on May 1st, 2004.
However, the CSO admitted the figures did not take into account seasonal workers, or foreign students. It is believed more than two-thirds of people coming to Ireland from eastern Europe return home within 12 months, having completed courses or short-term employment.
Mr Punch said he understood about 84,000 people from EU accession states had been issued with Personal Public Service (PPS) numbers for the purpose of employment, and that 40,000 of these were from Poland alone, adding it was a "difficult conundrum" to tally these figures with the migration statistics. He suggested, however, part of the explanation was a "fairly significant turnover" in arrivals.
He added, despite the disparity in figures, "we don't think we are underestimating the population growth at 2.2 per cent". He conceded next year's census would provide a more definitive answer.
Other EU member states provided fewer immigrations compared to the previous year. Numbers from the EU-15 dropped by 3,500 over the period.
Immigration from UK nationals rose by 1,000 to 6,900, and from Irish nationals by 2,100 to 19,000. There was a fall of 200 in the number of US nationals, with 1,600 migrating to Ireland.
The biggest drop was in immigration from the rest of the world. There were 9,000 such people in the year to April 2005, compared to 14,900 the previous year, 17,700 in 2003, and 21,700 in 2002. This coincides with a drop in people seeking asylum in Ireland from 11,600 in 2002 to 4,800 in 2004.
