The first line of the press release that accompanied the publication of the ESRI report on ‘The role of misperceptions in attitudes to immigration’ pulls no punches. It declaims that “Many people believe immigration is happening on a larger scale than it really is and this misperception is strongly associated with negative attitudes to immigration.”

The rest of the blurb, and the report itself, is little more than a series of Aunt Sallys which the intrepid researchers knock down with their trusty “online survey of 1,200 adults” lance. 

Their “Behold the Head of the Dragon” moment is where they pronounce that “On average, people estimate that 28% of the population was born abroad, when the highest official figure is 22%.”

(Oh, and by the way, the highest official figure is 22.6% if the ESRI is inclined to accept Eurostat as such a source.)

Think on that one for a moment. Setting aside the fact that Official Ireland and all its well-funded appendages have for years deliberately obscured the actual level of immigration, look at the figures the ESRI produce as proof that people are getting excited needlessly.

The most recent 2024 Eurostat estimate for the proportion of the population of all member states born outside of their state of residence was 14.1%. Which means that the official estimate of the proportion of the population of the Irish state born ‘overseas’ is close to twice the average level across all member states.

Not only that but the Eurostat population figures show that the Irish state in 2024 had a foreign born population of 22.6% which was the third highest of all EU states, behind only Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus.  

Which just might, you know, be why the ‘perceptions’ are as they are here, rather than the population being bombarded by ‘misinformation’ and God knows.

It is hardly surprising either that there is uncertainty about the level of immigration when for years, especially on the release of Census reports, the mainstream media and others chose figures that clearly under-estimated the level.

The way in which it did so was by choosing to headline the ‘non-national’ % as the measure of immigration.  Which of course it is not as there are several hundred thousand people living in the Irish state who were born outside the state and who have Irish nationality because they have acquired citizenship. They still immigrants came to live here as immigrants and they were still born in a different state. 

The ESRI in its own 2020 report on immigration and integration – which inter alia claims that “immigration inflows have risen slightly” – relies on the citizenship metric in a table which shows that the ‘non-national’ population of the state was just 12.5% in 2019.  

What they actually meant was that the % of people who hadn’t acquired an Irish passport was 12.5%. Whereas we know from the 2016 and 2022 Census reports that the number of people born outside of the state increased from 17% in 2016 to 20% in 2022.  It is certain to be several points higher almost four years later. 

That is quite a gap. And if there was an ESRI less dedicated to “changing attitudes toward immigration” but not just “for their own sake,” such a research body might focus on the potentially misinformative impact of such selective choice of statistics.

What is remarkable really is that those surveyed chose an estimate for the non Irish population that was much closer to the actual figure than the one headlined over the years by everyone from Government ministers to NGO apparatchiks and Craggy Island is for All ‘activists.’

Readers and others who have looked behind the official population estimates will also know that those official estimates are not set in stone. There are large discrepancies between different metrics which one academic researcher believed may have contributed to an underestimate of 400,000 in the 2016 Census. 

The Central Statistics Office itself regularly revises upwards its population estimates as it assesses the information available from PPS issues and other sources. 

There are other issues that one might take up with the ESRI report. One example will suffice.  The survey includes a statistic on the prison population and refers to their finding that those surveyed on average thought that the % of the population that is ‘non Irish’ was much higher than it is.

Well, sorry to Fact Check their ass, but the respondents chose a percentage closer to the official figure than the authors of the report.  The ESRI number crunchers cite the ‘official estimate’ of the non-Irish prison population as 20.7%.  Those surveyed thought that it was 28.7%

Whereas the most recent Prison Service Report states, not estimates as they keep daily count, that 24.7% of those committed to prison in 2024 were ‘non Irish nationals.’  Which means that the survey figure was quite accurate.

Indeed, if you delved deep into the appendices you will find that the ESRI’s ‘official estimate’ comes from the Prison Service use of citizenship not birth as the metric for that estimate. Which, given the inclusion of those born outside of the state but who are now Irish citizens means that the % of the non-Irish prison population must be close to one-third.

Let’s not get all pedantic.

The important takeaway for me is the word ‘perception.’ People in general rely on how they perceive things to be rather than what the statistics might tell them.  If you are out with the bowler these mornings and you feel that it is cold you do not need to consult Met Eireann to decide whether you are right or not.

Likewise, if you are living in Dublin or in other urban and indeed not so urban parts of the state your perceptions might be that the place in which you live and were quite likely born in is changing beyond all recognition and at a pace that few might have imagined.  You don’t need a sociology graduate to decide whether you are correct or not. 

The CSO and the State, while poo poohing your perceptions and groundless fears will at the same time baldly admit that 90% of population growth over the next 30, 40, 50 years will be made up of immigrants. 

There is a rather crude vernacular analogy that encapsulates when people are doing something that you perceive not to be to your benefit while at the same time assuring you that it is all for your own good.  I am not certain it will pass editorial muster but here goes:

“Don’t piss on my head and tell me its raining.”