So now we are not dying enough, I guess the IMF will insist on more dying.

@Barry R.: While agreeing with you that it is one danger of inward migration, and without being too naive I would think Ireland being a much smaller country will not see these problems in anywhere near the same measure as have Britain, France and the USA. Our case is very different, firstly with Britain and France their immigration came in massive bursts following the several huge losses of colonies in their disintegrating empires. We have seen nothing like that magnitude of influx (especially of low skilled labour). Secondly much of the difficulty in their cases became aggravated by religious issues when those countries were still in the dark-ages in terms of acceptance and tolerance. Thirdly another key factor was the economic myre of the 70s and 80s (the end of les 30 glorieuses in France, the beginning of conservativism in Britain)…which eclipse our current recession in terms of the real economy. One could draw comparison more accurately between Ireland’s case and that of the USA…economic promised land etc…money in abundance (Celtic Tiger Supposedly) but even so the scale difference cannot be ignored. The US is unfathomably larger than Ireland population wise…add to that a whole range of other issues too complex to go into…comparison is illogical. My point about Ireland is…we cannot and will not see those problems. I have had the privilege of working with “the new Irish”…people who came from all over the world and settled in our country…and the majority feel welcomed, accepted and love our little culture, and it’s people. We need to make sure they are welcomed, accepted etc because we have the right conditions to achieve a truely multi-cultural society.

Its all the cold weather that we have here :)

I haven’t had a chance to go through the full report online, but I wonder what the true Irish growth rate is ?
(total births excluding births to migrants, ‘refugees/asylum seekers’ and welfare tourists)

It will be interesting to see how Berties so-called policy of multiculturalism works, as the next generation embeds itself without fully integrating into Irish society.
Many studies have shown that this is where the problems really begin ;
Look at the ghettos/enclaves in Britain, the USA, and France as examples.

The movement of large numbers of people across borders and into societies alien to them doesn’t really appear to have worked in sociological terms.