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Ireland Record Immigration Makes Dublin Unfamiliar to Joyce
Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Every Sunday, the 190-year-old St. Michan's Church in
north Dublin offers two masses that fill every pew. Both are conducted in
Polish.

``Poles come here because they want to make it,'' said Father Andrew Pyka,
who celebrates the Polish masses at St. Michans. ``They have positive
experiences, and are finding many more jobs than ever I imagined.''

Ireland's economy expanded at an annual 4.1 percent in the three months
through June, double the previous quarter's rate, luring workers from
Eastern Europe. The government estimates it needs an extra 420,000 workers
by 2010 to maintain growth. The number of foreign-born people may more than
double to 1 million within three decades, the statistics office said
yesterday.

``Irish employers have acquired a taste for cheap, reliable labor,'' Brian
McCormick, an economist at Dublin-based FAS, the national employment and
training authority, said in an interview on Sept. 29. ``Workers from abroad
are filling jobs, keeping wages down and keeping our economy competitive.''

Dublin's Moore Street, synonymous with hawkers who peddle fruit, vegetables
and flowers in the accent of the city, now reflects the changes in Ireland's
demographics.

Ulysses Butcher

Take the store window of F.X. Buckley, a Moore Street butcher that features
in James Joyce's 1922 novel ``Ulysses.'' There are pigs' heads and chicken
necks popular with the Chinese community alongside a sign denoting ``boczek
wedzony,'' a type of smoked pork favored by Polish customers. Nearby, Afro-
Caribbean food is for sale and hair salons cater to the Chinese.

The first Chinatown festival was held in Smithfield in Dublin's north-inner
city last year. A cable channel started the first broadcast in Polish this
month.

``I love it,'' said Indra Variakojiene, a 31-year-old Lithuanian who manages
Cafe Sol, close to Dublin's St. Stephen's Green, and whose sister, husband
and mother have all worked in Ireland. ``Life here is very easy, not like at
home, where people worry about whether they're going to get paid.''

The Irish population rose to 4.13 million in the year through April, the
most in almost 150 years, boosted by 70,000 immigrants. About 10 percent of
the residents are non-nationals, the Paris-based Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development says.

National unemployment was 4.3 percent in August, half the level in the
25-nation European Union, according to the government.

Cheap Labor

Manufacturing wages were 3.29 euros an hour in Poland last year, compared
with 18.79 euros in Ireland, according to the Cologne-based IW economic
institute. Polish unemployment is running at 18 percent. Lithuania's rate is
7.5 percent.

The accession of 10 mostly Eastern European countries to the EU in May last
year opened a new labor pool for Ireland. Some 128,708 people from the 10
nations obtained Irish social security numbers beginning on May 1, 2004,
through the end of last month. Half of them are from Poland, the biggest of
the new EU members, and 19 percent from Lithuania, the government says.

Bertie Ahern's Fianna Fail-dominated government was among three of 15
European Union countries that opened its doors to workers from EU-accession
countries without a transition period. The other two were the U.K. and
Sweden. British GDP grew 1.5 percent in the second quarter and Sweden
expanded by 2.3 percent in the period, both trailing the Irish economy.

Ireland's demographic shifts coincided with its economic expansion. In the
four years to 1995, Ireland was the only one of the 15 member nations of the
European Union where the number of people leaving outnumbered arrivals.

`God Knows Where'

From 1994 to 1999, immigration was the second-highest in the then 15 EU
nations after Luxembourg, according to the Irish Immigration Council. The
accession of the 10 Eastern European nations to the EU provided a new spurt
of migrants.

Dublin-based Bank of Ireland Plc, the biggest Irish lender by assets, is
hiring bilingual staff and translating product information into Mandarin,
Polish and Russian.

City Channel, the cable station broadcasting the country's first Polish
program in Dublin, is considering similar programs for other migrant groups,
said Olivia Reilly, a spokeswoman for the company.

The influx of foreign workers isn't welcomed everywhere. Dublin-based Irish
Continental Group Plc, the country's biggest ferry company, said Sept. 19 it
plans to cut 543 jobs on routes linking Ireland to Wales and hire crew ships
with cheaper labor drawn from the rest of the EU through an outside
contractor.

Ahern said in parliament on Sept. 28 that the plan to replace Irish workers
with people ``from god knows where'' was ``unacceptable.''

At St. Michan's, where Ireland's employment service advertises training
courses in Polish, 500 Poles cram into the church on the corner of Bull Lane
and Mary's Lane.

``It's a huge congregation,'' said Father Terence Harrington, a St. Michan's
parish priest. ``I tried to get into the church two weeks ago and failed. We
don't normally have that problem.''



To contact the reporter on this story:
Brian O'Neill in Dublin at bjoneill@....

Last Updated: October 5, 2005 01:42 EDT