The Workers’ Party is an explicitly anti-racist organisation which opposes all forms of racial bigotry, and all forms of legal and workplace discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnicity.

We do, however, recognise that all states must discriminate between individuals on the basis of citizenship, as a necessary condition for the functioning of the state. Such discrimination should not be unnecessarily conflated with racism or xenophobia.

In this statement we set out our position on the question of migration, which is based on four core principles: building and defending working class power, protecting the conditions of Irish workers, protecting immigrants from social and economic abuse, and forestalling all efforts to divide the Irish working class along ethnic lines.

To this end:

The Workers’ Party supports a system of regulated economic migration, in which the rate of immigration (in particular, the number of non-EU work permits issued per year) is controlled in proportion to the demand for labour and the state’s ability to expand social services & housing supply where needed.

We support the full social and economic integration of all migrant workers into the Irish nation. Both states must make social integration of immigrants a priority.

We do not support “open borders”.

We oppose all practices which seek to exploit immigrant workers, and recognise that such practices also have a negative effect on domestic working conditions. Migration should be regulated so as to ensure that the conditions of workers in Ireland are not undermined through super-exploitation of migrant workers, through the creation of a reserve army of labour, or through the fostering of differences along ethnic lines. Measures in this regard should include:
• A ban on hiring of overseas workers at below industry wages
• A ban on any conditions on work-visas aimed at increasing precarity of workers’ legal status.
• All workers working in Ireland must be legally employed in Ireland, not through overseas agencies.
• Visas for foreign workers should depend on job offers
• Government should publish immigration targets for 3 year intervals
• Welfare benefits which are not universally available to Irish citizens should not be extended to non-citizens.

We demand that the state take real action to reduce emigration of Irish workers. This includes incentives for the return of workers from overseas, particularly in education, healthcare and construction. Such measures should include support for relocation costs, and help in securing school places.

We believe that a strengthened labour movement is the best vehicle through which to tackle exploitation of migrant workers and build class solidarity between Irish workers and immigrants.

The Workers’ Party is committed to the principle of International Protection, and demands fair and humane treatment of all asylum seekers. However:
• We do not defend the current dysfunctional Direct Provision (DP) system.
• We acknowledge that the over-concentration of DP centres in deprived areas with lack of social services exacerbates tensions and fuels hostility to immigration. This practice should be ended.

We oppose the “two-tier” system for refugees, which prioritises Ukrainians over asylum seekers and, in certain respects, over Irish citizens (e.g. with respect to access to medical cards). We believe the Irish government’s mis-handling of the Ukrainian refugee situation significantly worsened the existing homelessness crisis and was a major contributor to the current anti-immigrant violence.

We oppose the creation of refugees through the promulgation of imperialist wars, which we recognise as an important cause of migration. To this end, we oppose the erosion of Irish neutrality, and seek an immediate negotiated peaceful settlement of the war in Ukraine.

With regard to the issue of migration more generally, the Workers’ Party recognises the following:
• Accepting open borders, either implicitly or explicitly, as the only solution to the problems of global inequality and economic under-development, is a neo-liberal approach. As such, its currency on the ‘left’ is symbolic of the defeat of the workers’ movement in the era of neo-Iiberalism, the end of any real belief in systemic change or vision or a better world for all, and its descent into the politics of moralism and the related co-option of large sections of the ‘left’ by NGO liberalism.
• We recognise that global inequality cannot be alleviated by migration, and that patterns of economic migration often serve to reinforce imperialist relations. Depriving poorer countries of their skilled and educated labour is a major factor behind the inhibition of their economic development.
• The solution most beneficial to the peoples of the west and those forced to migrate is to end the need to migrate through the creation of genuine national sovereignty and economic development.
• As socialists we should look to the example of the Soviet Union who aided anti-colonial national independence movements across the world in throwing off the yoke of imperialism and bettering the lives of their citizens. They achieved this through the provision of political and economic aid to these countries, not through hand-wringing moralism nor open borders.