What happens if in 10 years the economy takes a nose-dive? Worstcase opponents of a flexible immigration policy forecast apocalyptic racial tensions leading to the rise of right-wing parties, such as that of Le Pen in France. If events did prove them right, experience elsewhere in Europe suggests that, bad as things may seem, we ain't seen nothing yet.
John O'Donoghue expressed this anxiety three weeks ago. Since then, the Minister has ridden his own political crisis with considerable style, supported by a Government anxious to assure prosperous voters it is in humane control of the situation. But in the privacy of today's meeting on the immigration and asylum crisis chaired by the Taoiseach, substance, not style, will determine strategy.
Portents of doom such as O'Donoghue voiced must put up or shut up. Like Ivor Callely's assertion that there is widespread abuse of welfare systems by non-nationals without work permits, O'Donoghue has not offered evidence in favour of the worst-case scenario. He may feel anxious, as others do, but the facts don't support him. Yet his feeling does us some service: it's a good illustration of how old cultural habits inhibit Government and the nonspecialist public from seeing contemporary issues such as immigration in their real context.
With one month to the millennium, most of us are still talking about escaping the straitjackets of de Valera's Ireland, when it is actually that of Sean Lemass we must leave behind. Put simply, we used to export people and import cash. Now, we can do it the other way round. Lemass's brilliant economic plans worked on the basis that Ireland needed access to capital, having already more than enough labour.
Thirty years on, access to capital is guaranteed, but labour shortages mean capital can't always be put to work.
MAJOR trade agreements such as GATT, along with EU monetary union, make it impossible to repeat the factors that created high unemployment. New factors could emerge. The EU's most recent opinion poll measuring attitudes towards immigration and racism identified the principal contributory racist factors as a low level of public confidence in public authorities and in the political establishment; dissatisfaction with personal life circumstances; and fear of unemployment.
In 1997, 48 per cent of French people surveyed were quite or very racist, as against only 24 per cent of Irish people. Shutting up on immigration policy makes it more likely Irish percentages will rise. Putting up means developing a clear, cohesive policy that admits the legitimate fears of people who believe they will be placed in direct competition with immigrants for jobs, hospital places and housing. To borrow Dick Spring's inclusive approach to the White Paper on foreign policy in 1996, immigration policy "must contribute to a sense of ownership . . . by all people of Ireland". This will take time.
Nothing can stop the phenomenon of human migration. It's a positive sign of the times that an unprecedented coalition of human rights proponents, trade unionists and economists are variously asserting the benefits of introducing a dynamic immigration policy, albeit from different perspectives. Economists such as David McWilliams and Colin Duffy have separately argued in favour of greatly enhanced immigration for economic reasons.
McWilliams points to human factors, too. His studies of Chinese immigration and its effect on the software business of Silicon Valley confirm that immigration benefits not only short-term labour supply, but also enhances long-term trading because people keep in touch with the place they left behind. In Silicon Valley, that human element created massive trading increases between the US and China.
Such studies can be repeated in terms of the trading and cultural contacts of other immigrant communities. The Irish diaspora, which has brought so many economic and political advances to the economy of this country, is a typical example of how human and economic interests combine to benefit both the country of origin and the country of residence.
Counter to the stereotype, Irish family ties are neither exceptional nor unique.
THE Irish and Chinese diasporas underline how one-eyed any vision is that restricts immigration to those with skills. The Chinese who left after the Cultural Revolution did not do so already trained in software or with foreknowledge of its future place in global communications. Like most people freed from conditions of stress once they took the risk of leaving home, they were more likely to entertain possibilities that could not be achieved at home.
They shared with other ethnic minorities a greater level of discrimination in their new countries which had consequences for their health, yet displayed in parallel a greater commitment to education and work than their majority community peers.
But what about France? For so long as the Irish economy sticks to its current tactics, with appropriate adjustments in social policy areas like employment rights, housing and health, the factors that made France vulnerable to the rise of right-wing parties are unlikely to emerge here.
France's colonial experiences and clas-sbased attitudes lie deep in some of its citizens' mind-sets. The specific economic policies fostered the rise of the right by promoting the idea that it was wiser to save, not spend; the antithesis of national economic strategy since the Tallaght strategy. The result was low public investment and consistently insecure levels of employment, which fed on low-grade cultural tendencies.
Moving on from Sean Lemass's Ireland entails no disrespect to his legacy.
Quite the reverse. Lemass's vision meant seeing clearly the challenges of international markets while keeping people's interests at heart. The tragedy was that he had to wait almost a decade before working on his plans with T.K. Whittaker, leaving history with the legacy of too many lost people and lost chances in the 1950s. Getting immigration policy right is a moment of history of the same order.