A report looking at the growing number of foreigners coming to live in Ireland. More people are now coming into the country rather than leaving.
Rising immigration requires that the host country adapts to the new, growing and varied population. Outdated concepts of assimilation have been replaced by relatively new concepts of multiculturalism, where people with different religions from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, retain their identity.
Professor Mary Corcoran from the Department of Sociology at N.U.I. Maynooth comments that the best place to start educating the population about multiculturalism is with the young. Corcoran argues that as children are not born with a set of preconceptions, normalisation of multiculturalism should occur from a young age through the education system. Children in turn could teach their parents better habits and perspectives.
Philip Watt from the Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, sees a greater role for politicians commenting that
we need to develop policies which promote the positive inclusion of those people
There has been some evidence of intolerance in Ireland already, some of which has been put down to negative media labels and images of immigrants as spongers rather than contributors to society. Multiculturalism is not viewed by all as a positive thing as is voiced by Áine Ní Chonaill, of the Immigration Control Platform.
Economic expansion implies that immigration is inevitable to support the ever increasing demand for workers.
