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DHALIWAL:
When you watched the film, did you get nostalgic as an Irishman just looking at some of those dramatic changes, which, for some, were also very traumatic as well?
SUTHERLAND:
Well, I'm not nostalgic for the fact that we had 17 percent unemployment in 1987.
DHALIWAL:
Nobody's talking about bringing about the bad old days, right?
SUTHERLAND:
No. I don't think anybody wants that. And, you know, pictures of how we used to live 100 years ago or 50 years ago or 20 years ago may be interesting, historically, but none of us really want to go back to that place. I think we're looking for something more than that.
And I think that our young people, who are the key to our future, are vital. It's also important to make the point that -- at least for the immediate future -- demographically we have young people coming into the market. Many of our competitor European countries don't.
They have a demographic decline which is very serious. Young people are not coming into the market and old people are retiring from it. And that reduces your dynamic for economic growth. We're doing well there still.
DHALIWAL:
And a lot of those young people that are coming in from other EU countries -- we see that in our film. They're coming from countries like Poland. We have the example of the two sisters. And how are they contributing to the boom and the growth? How important is the migrant experience in Ireland?
SUTHERLAND:
A lot of this is anecdotal. For me, it's fantastic. The people who I come across who are serving me in shops or working in businesses or whatever seem to me to be enthusiastic, very nice people, and they're a very positive element in the Irish economy.
Eight percent of our workforce today are non-Irish. And that's happened in a very brief period of time. A lot of them have come from Central and Eastern Europe as a result of membership of the European Union. They are being given an opportunity which countless generations of Irish people had to seek outside Ireland. So, if we're not welcoming to them.
DHALIWAL:
Are we welcoming to them?
SUTHERLAND:
I think we are. I think if we were not to welcome to them, we would be denying an obligation which we have to do what others have done to us. There've been great periods of migration in the history of mankind between 1870 and 1914.
There was a bigger period of migration, actually, than today, but then it was basically across the Atlantic, significantly from this country and from Italy to the United States. Now, we are participating in a different type of change. It's slightly more traumatic because in some respects, the people are coming from more alien cultures -- in Africa, in North Africa or whatever -- different cultures.
DHALIWAL:
And that's difficult for a homogonous society like Ireland?
SUTHERLAND:
It should be more difficult, in theory, than the U.S. The U.S., after all, is an immigrant society. It's all sorts of historic roots with every different group in society, whereas this Republic of Ireland was a very homogenous place full of people who shared the same views, the same religion, the same history, the same everything.
So, it is difficult suddenly -- because we have had an explosion of migrants in a very short period of time. Whereas Britain has for decades been receiving migrants including many from Ireland, but also from other parts of the Commonwealth. This is a new phenomenon for us. I think myself, I hope I'm not being guilty of hubris in this, I think we're doing rather well. I think most migrants here think that they are well received and whilst there will always be tensions, I think that, so far, it's working well. If we'd a sudden decline in population, in employment, then you really could possibly have more tensions than you have today.
So, we have to work very hard at this. And I'm not saying that there's no risk to the Irish economy. Whilst our income is very high, you must remember that we don't have the infrastructure that other countries have developed over a very long period of time.
That's why we're going through, as you will see everywhere you go, an explosion of road building and everything else. We've had to suddenly develop our wealth. We don't have a residue within Irish society of huge wealth which is something which GDP growth figures don't really reflect.
DHALIWAL:
We are going through this period of intense international migration. What are the consequences of these big movements of people?
SUTHERLAND:
I think it's an inevitability in the world in which we live -- no matter how one tries to build walls, or to deal with this purely as a security or border issue -- that it can't be dealt with in that way. When you have a difference between the poorest countries in the world and the richest countries in the world, where, I think, the figure is that the richest countries in the world, their average income is 56 times bigger than that of the poorest.
And when you have communications, it's inevitable that migration is part of our lives, and we can't avoid it. I don't think we should avoid it. I think there's also a bit of a moral obligation to try to be as constructively engaged as you can be dealing with migration. Particularly, as I say, a country that's had a Diaspora all over the world for decades with 30 or 40 million Americans being able to claim their Irish provenance. I mean, this is something where we have to behave ourselves. I think we are behaving ourselves, as I said earlier.
DHALIWAL:
You have many hats that you wear. One of them is the United Nations Special Representative on Migration. Where are the migrants coming from? What is the migrant experience in Ireland?
SUTHERLAND:
Well, first of all, it's a global migration. There are significant numbers of migrants in Ireland, for an example, that come from China. It amazed me -- as somebody who comes to Ireland once every three or four weeks now for weekends -- to find a Chinatown developing in Dublin. Nobody would've expected that before. But, we have Africans and we have Chinese.
But, the main preponderance is coming from Poland which we've referred to earlier. We also have significant numbers from the Baltic Republics, Latvia and so on.
DHALIWAL:
So, who's pouring the warm pints of Guinness and working on the Irish construction sites which are fueling this massive property boom that we all keep hearing about in Dublin?
SUTHERLAND:
I think that they are all. I mean, the Frenchmen, they allegedly voted no on the European Constitution because of the Polish plumber. But I don't think anyone would be put off by the prospect of a Polish plumber here. They'd probably be delighted to be able to get one.
DHALIWAL:
And one of the other consequences is that Ireland's population, for example, rose to 4.1 million. I mean that's the highest that it's been in something like 160 years.
SUTHERLAND:
Yes. It is. It's high by Irish standards, obviously. And the whole island of Ireland is well over five million. So we've a bigger population than we've ever had before, and that's a very good thing. How much better it is than lighting candles in the window for members of our family and others who were abroad and never wanted to go in the first place.
DHALIWAL:
And Ireland was a net loser of people, now it's a net gainer of people.
SUTHERLAND:
Absolutely.
DHALIWAL:
And they're coming from all over the EU, right?
SUTHERLAND:
They are. Absolutely from everywhere. That's a good thing. It's a sign of progress in my view. And I think that that's one of the greatest generators of progress. And also, I think, it's intellectually liberating to live with people from different backgrounds. There was an Irish writer called Brinsley McNamara who wrote of the valley of squinting windows. We don't want to be a valley of squinting windows. And I don't think we are.
We're a people who've always been engaged in the world. Our missionaries and our NGOs have been all over the world for centuries. We've had links with other countries because of our immigrants. And now it's time that we opened up in another way, which is to migrants coming here, as best we can. Now there are limits.
DHALIWAL:
You've written that migration is the mother of progress and invention. Talk about that. What do you mean?
SUTHERLAND:
Well, I think it generates a dynamic community. It's done it in the United States. It opens minds. It creates innovation. And, often, migrants are people who work extremely hard, and therefore benefit the societies into which they come. You can find that in the United Kingdom with the various groups that have come from former colonies. And you can see how dynamic they are. Not drags on the community, which sometimes is the caricature that people who are against migration, produce.
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Peter Sutherland, Chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs and UN Special Representative on Migration and Development
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