Ireland is the top destination for migrants from the 10 new EU states, attracting six times as many people as Britain in proportion to its population, writes Jamie Smyth, Technology Reporter.
Yet contrary to fears that the Republic would be flooded with cheap labour, the inflow of new workers has benefited the Irish economy, a new report shows.
Report on the Free Movement of Workers in the EU-25 was compiled by the civil rights group European Citizen Action Service. The report, gathered from data from 20 of the 25 EU states, said that 85,000 migrant workers travelled to the Republic from the 10 new EU states following enlargement. It did not quantify the output generated by these workers but concluded that Ireland has been a beneficiary of the enlargement.
The authors said yesterday that the economic impact here was similar to that in Britain where 175,000 migrant workers, who registered in the year following EU enlargement, generated £500 million in extra economic output.
This economic performance was achieved without boosting unemployment or straining the welfare system, it concluded.
It noted that Irish State agencies have targeted workers from the 10 new member states for recruitment for several years.
"The influx of new workers was considered as the lifeblood of the Irish economy and was certainly needed to sustain the country's economic growth," it said.
The report pinpointed Poland, Lithuania and Latvia as the three new EU states providing the highest number of migrants. It also characterised the typical migrant from eastern Europe as a young, male, single worker who sends money back to his home country.
The level of migration from the 10 new member states to the original 15 EU members overall was comparatively low at less than 1 per cent of the labour force, according to the report, which highlighted the high wages and flexible labour markets in the Republic and Britain as key factors for workers seeking jobs.
"The scaremongers who had predicted a large influx of cheap labour from central and eastern Europe have been proved wrong," said Tony Venables, director of the European Citizen Action Service, at the launch of the report in Brussels yesterday.
The Republic, Sweden and Britain were the only three states to open their labour markets fully to migrants from the 10 new member states.
Other states, such as France and Germany, which have high unemployment, put restrictions on the right to work for several years to protect their own labour markets. The European Commission will recommend next year whether these restrictions should be shortened.
Some campaigners against the Nice Treaty such as Anthony Coughlan of the National Platform had criticised the Government's policy of extending Irish citizens' rights of work to east European migrants when other EU states were not doing so.