Irish PM: Legal Migration Fuels Economy, Ireland ‘Not Overrun’

NEW YORK — Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin has rejected claims that Ireland has been “overrun” by immigrants, saying the country’s sharp demographic shift has largely resulted from legal migration linked to its economic growth. Nearly one in four people living in Ireland was born abroad.

In an exclusive interview with News Outlet, Martin acknowledged shortcomings in Ireland’s asylum system after applications reached record levels, conceding that the process “was too slow” in recent years.

He also discussed plans to tighten the requirements for Irish citizenship and said he was open to releasing crime figures that identify the nationalities of suspects, as immigration and crime remain at the center of a divisive public debate.

The issue has become a major political flashpoint in Europe and the United States. It has drawn renewed attention weeks after President Donald Trump criticized Europe’s approach to immigration while appearing with Martin in Dublin.

“That immigration, what you’re doing to yourselves, you’re just killing yourselves,” Trump said.

“Ireland is not overrun in any shape or form,” Martin told News Outlet. “But we are conscious that it is an issue that has to be addressed robustly, firmly, fairly as well in terms of those seeking asylum.”

He said governments across Europe were tightening their immigration policies in response to mounting political pressure. “All over Europe it’s tightening up because of the pressures and migration has created significant political pressures across Europe,” Martin said.

“Obviously, illegal migration is the more potent issue,” he said. Martin acknowledged that Ireland’s asylum system had been too slow but said processing had since accelerated, including both the initial review of applications and the appeals stage.

Martin said the government was preparing a new migration strategy. Proposals include extending the residency period required for citizenship from five years to eight, along with introducing language and economic self-sufficiency requirements.

Migration and crime

Immigration has become deeply connected to Ireland’s wider political debate, including concerns about housing, crime and the country’s rapidly changing population. A generation ago, Ireland was far more homogeneous than it is today.

The issue drew international attention in November 2023, when Riad Bouchaker, an Irish citizen born in Algeria, stabbed three young children and a childcare worker outside a Dublin school. The attack sparked riots as anger among some opponents of mass immigration erupted into violence in the capital. Protests against government efforts to house asylum seekers in communities nationwide continued afterward, with some demonstrations also turning into violent confrontations.

Immigration came back into focus this summer after the violent killing of Jamey Carney, a 43-year-old American mother from New York who was found dead at her home in County Kerry.

Her Jordanian boyfriend, who is the suspect in the case, had sought asylum in Ireland but was rejected and was appealing the decision while remaining in the country. He left Ireland for Turkey soon after the killing and later traveled to Jordan. Irish police are now seeking his extradition.

News Outlet asked Martin whether the case revealed weaknesses in Ireland’s immigration system and whether the law should be changed.

“We’re looking at all of that in terms of tightening up the laws,” Martin said. “We will make sure that, particularly if people’s applications are rejected, that there’s fast movement in terms of the consequences of that.”

Crime data

Critics of Ireland’s immigration policies contend that migrants are responsible for a disproportionate share of crime. Those who reject that argument say it unfairly stigmatizes the country’s expanding foreign-born population. The dispute has been difficult to resolve because official Irish crime statistics do not routinely provide a breakdown by nationality, leaving little public data with which to assess the competing claims.

The lack of detailed figures has led women’s rights advocates and some Irish lawmakers to call for greater transparency, including proposals to publish crime statistics by nationality.

“I’ve no issue with data … because that can inform, because sometimes you get a kind of distorted picture,” Martin said when asked whether crime statistics should identify the nationality of alleged suspects. “So as far as I’m concerned, data is important.”

But Martin pushed back on the argument that nationality itself drives crime.

“I don’t think crime is specific to any nationality,” he said. “But there are issues there, and in some cases, yes, there’s been horrific crimes committed, but not all by illegal migrants either.”

Housing pressures

Housing has become another flashpoint as Ireland struggles to build enough homes to keep pace with its growing population.

Martin acknowledged that workers arriving legally in Ireland add to housing demand but said his government’s answer is to increase supply, with about 36,000 homes built last year, up more than 20% from the previous year and the highest annual total since 2011.

The Irish government’s reliance on hotels and other properties to house asylum seekers has itself become a flashpoint. The state spent about $1.4 billion on asylum accommodation and related services in 2025, while also buying properties outright, including the sprawling Citywest Hotel and Convention Centre for about $175 million.

The allocation of scarce public housing has further fueled the immigration debate.

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The pressure is particularly acute in Dublin, where figures released by the city council this month showed 42% of the 15,005 households on its social-housing waiting list were categorized as non-Irish, fueling anger online as Ireland’s homeless population hit a record high last month.

Nationally, 28.7% of social housing applicants — nearly 18,000 households — were non-Irish citizens in 2025, according to government figures provided to News Outlet. That included nearly 3,200 applicants from outside the EU with refugee status, up 64% from the previous year.

Asked whether Irish citizens should receive preferential treatment for social housing amid pressure on waiting lists, Martin backed the idea, saying that “our position is basically its citizens get priority.”

WATCH: Irish PM Micheál Martin addresses immigration’s impact on Ireland’s housing crisis

A country transformed

Ireland’s demographic transformation has been rapid.

Nearly one in four people living in Ireland was born abroad, up from about one in seven two decades ago. At 23.3%, Ireland now has the fourth-highest percentage of foreign-born residents in the European Union, according to Eurostat.

The transformation accelerated after the EU expanded eastward in 2004, a decision that helped fuel a sharp rise in immigration during Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” economic boom, when years of rapid growth transformed the country from one of Western Europe’s poorer economies into one of its wealthiest.

“It’s a bit like America really, free movement for the states here,” Martin said. “Our economy’s expanded hugely.”

Martin pointed to financial services and medical devices as industries that rely on skilled foreign workers, including non-EU workers arriving on work permits. More than half a million non-EU citizens were living in Ireland at the start of 2025, accounting for 9.3% of the population, according to Eurostat.

“It has been very dramatic, I agree, in the last three decades, largely because of the economic growth of Ireland,” Martin said. “You can’t switch off an economy either.”

Ireland’s economy has undergone a remarkable turnaround since the economic stagnation of the 1980s, through the “Celtic Tiger” boom and a devastating crash in 2008, before rebounding strongly. Over those decades, Ireland became a major European base for U.S. multinationals including Apple, Meta, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

Martin has been at the center of Irish politics through much of that period, serving in successive Fianna Fáil-led governments from 1997 before becoming prime minister, or Taoiseach, in 2020 and returning to the post in 2025.

Ireland’s economy continued to expand in 2025, with GDP growing 8%, according to Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO).

But prosperity has not eliminated pressure on households: nearly 45% reported difficulty making ends meet, while 64% identified housing and the same share identified inflation and the cost of living as among Ireland’s most pressing problems, according to the CSO.

Ireland’s more recent migration pressures have included a post-pandemic surge in asylum applicants, including people arriving from Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Applications jumped from roughly 3,500 a year before COVID to a record 18,561 in 2024, before falling nearly 30% last year and continuing to decline in 2026.

Separately, more than 120,000 Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion arrived under the EU’s Temporary Protection system rather than the asylum system. Martin said roughly 80,000 remain in Ireland, with many now working and contributing to the economy.

A nation of emigrants

Martin also emphasized that EU free movement works in both directions, with Irish citizens themselves living and working throughout the bloc.

“Irish people are working and living all over Europe,” Martin said. “That’s the other side of that story and that is something perhaps that we’re not as conscious of, but it is reality.”

Martin also placed Ireland’s modern demographic transformation within the country’s much longer history of emigration, pointing to the exodus that followed the Irish Famine.

“Ireland had 8 million people in 1845 before the Great Famine. That led to the big wave of Irish people migrating to come to America,” Martin said.

“We’re not at that level yet on the island of Ireland, so we need to look at it through the broad sweep of history in a historical perspective.”