Dublin: There is a secret that taxi drivers in Ireland have been telling each other lately.” How many Indians are in this country!”
A Mallu taxi driver at Dublin 4 also says the same because each day minimum two people entering his car speaks Hindi.
The Indian faces which can be found in the streets of Dublin and famous educational institutions are the evidences to back up the words of the taxi drivers. Even the number of Indian passengers in the Dublin Bus is increasing significantly.
Still why doesn’t the Irish government release the actual figures of Ireland’s Indian population?
Yes, one such secret is now becoming public. According to the figures from the previous census (2016) of the Irish Government the number of Indian born Irish residences are only 20969. As per the figures of 2011, this was 17856.
However, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2% of Ireland’s population is of Indian descent. 91,520 people to be exact.
But according to the figures from the CSO its clear that the PPS number issued Indians from the year 2011 to 2017 December is around 24000.
Since the figures for the UN in other countries are accurate so that the figures for Ireland are unlikely to be inaccurate.
It is required to add the numbers from the year 2000 to 2011 as well. There are proofs which shows that Indian are here in Ireland since the early years of independence.
Though Indians migrated to Australia and Canada from Ireland during this period, but most of them were only Malayalee nurses and their families.
Charles Flanagan at the last Citizenship Ceremony has reveled that 110000 people including children had just acquired citizenship in Ireland.
Although the country-wise figures are not given, according to the Department of Naturalization, Indians have the second highest number of citizenships after the Polish, at least more than 10 percent.
According to government figures, the number of Malayalam speakers in Ireland is only about three thousand five hundred.
The government has published the wrong figures, when it is certain that there are more than 12,000 Malayalees in Ireland.
The United Nation’s estimate of more than 90,000 Indians in Ireland is likely to be correct. This is because, there is a significant difference in the number of people of Indian descent in the census records, including the number of non-citizens who received a PPS number before 2011.
There has been a significant increase in the number of contract workers and students coming to Ireland from India in the recent years.
India also the nation which has the largest share of foreign direct investment in Ireland. Which is 27%.
Yet even in Ireland’s official figures, Indians are being treated indifferently and there are now complaints regarding this.
This is due to the fact that there is not even an organization to speak up for the Indian community in Ireland.