Future Forty and migration

Sir, – The Department of Finance’s Future Forty report rightly highlights Ireland’s ageing population and the importance of migration in sustaining the country’s labour force. The Minister for Finance’s contribution to The Irish Times earlier this week focuses centrally on the need for skilled migration (“Continued skilled inward migration will be vital to our future,” Opinion, November 4th).

Yet the report’s central scenario projects that family reunification will account for roughly 35 per cent of all net migration by 2065, while employment-related migration makes up about 30 per cent. In other words, most of the population growth attributed to migration will come from dependents rather than from workers directly filling skills shortages.

Despite this, the report treats total net migration as a near-synonym for new labour supply. It makes no serious attempt to model the labour market participation or fiscal contribution of family migrants, even though evidence from Denmark and the Netherlands shows that family and protection migrants often have lower employment rates and higher, long-term fiscal costs than labour migrants.

Ireland may well need migration to offset demographic decline, but composition matters as much as volume. If the future inflow is driven by non-EU family reunification, the assumption that migration will automatically relieve skills shortages or strengthen the Exchequer is questionable. – Yours, etc,

GARY MURPHY,

Blackrock,

Cork.

Argentina versus Australia

Sir, – In taking issue with David McWilliams’s portrayal of Australia as the more successful counterpart of Argentina, John Suttle argues that Argentina has taken a “more relaxed” and human approach to life, prioritising happiness over economic growth (Letters, N