The Welfare State vs Immigration: What Ireland's Numbers Actually Say
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Can immigration and a generous welfare state coexist?
Today's podcast all about some ancient memories from nearly forty beyond forty years ago, which is a bit sad really at this stage, but also we are going to talk about the welfare state and immigration. Is immigration consistent with an open Western welfare state? If yes. Grand, if no, what changes? Interesting stuff, urgent stuff, and I think this is gonna be the policy debate of the next ten years. It's all coming up. In a couple of minutes. To understand the economy, you have to understand human nature.
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How are you doing there? Time for the podcast. I hope all is good in your world. John and I have had a wonderful week, and we're looking forward to an even more wonderful week in the week ahead. Podcast today is going to be on the question of welfare states, not just welfare states, but the question is have you ever thought about whether or not or the consistency of having significant Migration. into welfare states that already existed and existed before the immigrants came. And the reason I asked this question is there was a very interesting piece last week in the Financial Times by a friend of the show, John Byrne Murdoch. Who made the point that when you look at welfare systems and welfare states, different ones in Europe and how they operate, and you look at migration and in and out of Europe in particular, what you see is varying different outcomes and different consequences based on the different welfare states.
And the idea is that not all welfare states are the same, and not all migrants are the same. And given that Even in the last day, there have been surveys in the Irish Times here, but again all over Europe saying that immigration is. One of the big issues of people it's has been in the top three for the last At least 12 months across every European country. We know with the rise of the AFD, with Le Pen, with Reform, with Maloney, and of course with Donald J. Trump's MAGA movement, all of these movements have at the source, or at least at one of the sources, a skepticism towards a downright disliked of and opposition to What they see is mass migration. Again, you can avoid this issue if you want. But I think putting your head in the sand is a
Stupid idea. If you put your head in the sand on this. What you will find is you are overwhelmed by the extremes on either side. And we don't want that because you can go extreme right on this, you can go extreme left on this, but the vast majority of people, the sort of silent majority in effect, tend to be in this center. Really having pretty liberal views on most things, accepting tolerant views, understanding the economics of it. But they tend to get drowned out by the rhetoric on either side. And the good thing of this podcast is we're gonna put some numbers, John. Data. I love a bit of numbers. We're gonna take away and take some of the heat out of the discussion and try and shed a bit of light with data.
How are you, Head? Good to see you.
I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I I love some numbers, especially when you get all matsy. It's just so It's
so huge. I know, I know, I know, I know. I was thinking about a scenario, youth John, uh, last night as I stood on Grafton Street. I stood on Grafton Street. And Юту. Cave A. An amazing 12 song set gig from the balcony of Beauties. Extraordinary
scenes. I I didn't know about that. I would have been in there. You should have given us a shout, Mike. I should have given you a shout.
I should have should have said, Come here, Johnny Boy, you should have been there. No, it was it was an impromptu gig, a secret gig given to about 15,000 people. But it was And was this all the new album? It's all the new album. It's a to it's to And again, the reason I'm thinking of our youth, it's to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of U2. And they have a new record out, a new album out. And I got the nod to go into McGonagall's yesterday afternoon to see and listen to some of the new material, which is amazing given that they've been 50 years in the business. Yeah. It seems fresh.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Can immigration and a generous welfare state coexist?
0:00–9:52
2
How has Ireland changed from an emigrant country to an immigration destination?
9:52–12:56
3
How does the tax and welfare system affect immigration’s fiscal impact?
12:56–17:19
4
Why do migrant employment patterns change the cost to the state?
17:19–19:42
5
How do migrant tax contributions compare across the UK, France, and Germany?
19:42–22:04
6
How much must an immigrant earn to contribute financially in Ireland?
22:04–25:09
7
How does Ireland’s progressive tax system redistribute income?
25:09–30:23
8
Should Ireland raise wages or change welfare policy to manage immigration?
30:23–33:49
Speakers
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