Ireland’s Next Decade: Why a Shared Future Can Be Stronger Than Racism
The young people learning together today can build a more united and prosperous Ireland tomorrow provided the country invests in belonging, opportunity and trust.
Ireland has good reasons to look beyond the anger surrounding immigration and believe in a more confident, inclusive future. The strongest reason is already visible in its classrooms: young people from different backgrounds are growing up within the same society, sharing lessons, ambitions and the experience of becoming adults.
Over the next five to ten years, those relationships can help weaken prejudice and strengthen cooperation. That is a credible possibility supported by research. It is not a guarantee that racism will disappear with time. Ireland must actively create the conditions that make the hopeful outcome more likely.
Racism deserves a serious response. Garda figures reported for 2024 recorded 676 hate crimes and hate-related non-crime incidents, compared with 651 in 2023. Anti-race accounted for 39% of recorded discriminatory motives. These figures cover several forms of hatred and cannot measure the full extent of racism, but they demonstrate why reassurance must be accompanied by protection and action. Garda figures reported in April 2025
The wider picture also matters. ESRI research published in January 2026 reported that most people in Ireland continued to hold broadly positive attitudes towards immigration. Its survey of 1,200 adults found substantial misconceptions: respondents estimated, on average, that 28% of the population was born abroad, compared with the study’s official benchmark of 22%. They also substantially underestimated migration for work and education. Inaccurate beliefs were associated with more negative attitudes, although that association alone does not establish causation. ESRI, January 2026
This gives Ireland a practical starting point. Public discussion should acknowledge real pressures while using accurate information. Concern about housing, public services or immigration policy should be heard and debated. Racial intimidation and collective blame should never become acceptable responses.
Ireland’s demographic change is already established. Census 2022 counted 631,785 non-Irish citizens, approximately 12% of the usually resident population present in the State. It also recorded 170,597 people with dual Irish citizenship, up from 104,784 in 2016. Citizenship, birthplace and ethnicity describe different things; none should become a shortcut for deciding who belongs. CSO, Census 2022
The educational evidence is particularly relevant to the next decade. According to the OECD, the proportion of students in Ireland’s PISA assessment with an immigrant background rose from 10% in 2012 to about 17% in 2022. These figures concern the assessed population of 15-year-olds, rather than every pupil in Ireland. They nevertheless demonstrate a substantial change in the generation moving towards adulthood. OECD, PISA 2022
For children in mixed classrooms, cultural difference can become part of ordinary life. A person whose family came from another country can also be the friend who helps with homework, the teammate who scores a goal, or the classmate preparing for the same examinations. Many young people with migrant parents are themselves Irish.
The inference is hopeful: relationships formed early can make broad stereotypes harder to sustain. However, school diversity alone cannot prove that every young person is accepting or that a whole generation is free from racism. What matters is the quality of the experience—friendship, equal treatment, cooperation and a genuine sense of belonging.
International research supports this argument. A major meta-analysis by Thomas Pettigrew and Linda Tropp examined 515 studies and found that contact between groups typically reduces prejudice. Supportive conditions, including cooperation, common goals and equal status within the interaction, strengthen the benefits. This supports investment in meaningful shared activities, although it cannot provide a timetable for eliminating racism in Ireland. Pettigrew and Tropp, 2006
By 2031–2036, today’s teenagers will increasingly be colleagues, entrepreneurs, tradespeople, graduates and parents. Their existing relationships could carry into workplaces and neighbourhoods. This is the strongest argument for taking a longer view: repeated cooperation can gradually make a shared Irish identity more familiar and more inclusive.
There is also an economic reason to support that process. ESRI’s Monitoring Report on Integration 2024 found that, in the first quarter of 2024, employment among foreign-born residents aged 15–64 stood at 76.8%, compared with 72.7% among Irish-born residents. These are descriptive differences influenced by factors including population composition; they are not a ranking of either group’s value or effort. ESRI, Table 2.1
The same research programme found that, across 2021–2023, 59% of working-age foreign-born residents had tertiary education, compared with 42% of Irish-born residents. Ireland already has a substantial pool of skills across its communities. The strategic task is to help people use those skills effectively. ESRI, integration findings
Modern prosperity depends on connecting people, knowledge, investment and functioning institutions. Capital needs capable workers and viable ideas. Skills need equipment, customers and opportunities. Businesses need trust, infrastructure and access to markets. Multicultural cooperation can widen the experience, languages and international connections available to that shared effort.
Consider a business combining local knowledge, overseas technical experience, Irish investment and access to international customers. Each contribution can make the others more productive. A country gains when people can learn from one another and build something together. Diversity becomes an economic strength through effective cooperation and fair access to opportunity.
Those benefits must also reach ordinary households. ESRI found that 37% of migrants spent more than 30% of their income on housing, compared with 9% of Irish-born residents. Strong participation in work can coexist with serious insecurity. An argument for a prosperous multicultural Ireland must therefore include affordable homes, decent employment and adequate services for everyone. ESRI, housing findings
Research on communities reinforces this point. An ESRI study published in 2025 found no overall association between the local share of migrants—or its recent growth—and immigration attitudes. It did find more negative attitudes in disadvantaged communities and more segregated areas. Its measures of local service pressure did not establish a link with negative attitudes. The findings suggest that social conditions and opportunities for contact deserve greater attention than simple assumptions about population numbers. ESRI, community research
A serious five-to-ten-year strategy should therefore invest in shared schools, youth clubs, sport and community projects; improve housing and public services; help qualified people enter suitable employment; and respond consistently to racist harassment. Progress should be assessed through people’s experiences of discrimination, educational opportunity, employment and belonging, alongside recorded incidents and public attitudes.
Irish culture can remain central to this future. Its language, literature, history, music and sporting traditions can be shared with children from every background. Participation gives newcomers and their children a stake in the country, while giving established communities opportunities to pass on what they value.
There is a strong case for patience with the process of social change, combined with urgency about present harm. No family should be asked to tolerate racism for another decade. Equally, Ireland should not allow today’s hostility to define its expectations of tomorrow.
The young people learning beside one another now have the potential to build a country more comfortable with its diversity and more capable of turning shared talent into shared prosperity. Give those relationships support, give people fair opportunities, and judge the coming decade by what they can achieve together.
A prosperous Ireland can be built by people of many backgrounds who share a commitment to its future.
Researched and written by
Atif Bangash
Entrepreneur & Founder
