Migrant Workers in Ireland: Population, Routes, Sectors, Earnings
A factual reference: Who is in Ireland, who works, and on what legal basis. Combining the latest CSO population, labour market, Ukraine and International Protection releases with the underlying DETE Employment Permit spreadsheets.
April 2025
of employees, 2024
issued in 2025
into the workforce
Foreign nationals working in Ireland in 2024 and 2025 arrived through four legally distinct routes: EU and EEA free movement, non-EEA employment permits issued by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, the EU Temporary Protection Directive activated in response to the war in Ukraine, and the International Protection system. Each route has different rules of entry, a different demographic profile, a different sectoral footprint, and a different earnings distribution.
This article sets out the public facts about each. It opens with a population and labour market baseline, sets out the four-route framework, and works through each route in turn using only data published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the Department of Enterprise (DETE) and the European Migration Network (EMN). It closes with the cross-cutting observations that follow from the data, and the two key gaps in what is currently published.
Different data sources count different things. CSO Population and Migration Estimates count people on a usual-residence basis. The Distribution of Earnings by Nationality dataset counts PAYE-recorded employments (not persons, and not the self-employed). The Census 2022 uses a de facto basis on Census night and is not directly comparable to Population Estimates. DETE permit data counts the annual flow of permits issued, not the stock of permit holders present in the State. The Ukraine and International Protection releases are CSO Frontier Series – based on administrative data using methodologies still under development. Where these differences matter, the text notes them.
A note on terminology
- EU/EEA
- The European Union 27 member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Switzerland has equivalent free-movement rights through a separate agreement. UK citizens are not EU/EEA since Brexit, but retain free movement to and from Ireland under the Common Travel Area.
- NACE
- The EU standard classification of economic activities. NACE letters used in this article: A = Agriculture, C = Manufacturing, F = Construction, G = Wholesale & Retail, H = Transport, I = Accommodation & Food, J = Information & Communication, K = Financial & Insurance, P = Education, Q = Health & Social Work, S = Other Services.
- Employment Permits
- Non-EEA workers generally need an employment permit. The two main types are the Critical Skills Employment Permit for higher-paid roles in shortage occupations (typical salary €38,000+, rising to €40,904 from March 2026), and the General Employment Permit for other roles (€34,000+, rising to €36,605 from March 2026). Both are issued by DETE.
- Residency stamps
- An immigration permission issued by the Department of Justice that may or may not include the right to work. Stamp 4 confers full work rights and is typically granted after 21 months on a Critical Skills Permit or 57 months on a General Permit. Stamp 1G is for graduates of Irish higher education institutions. Stamp 3 is for spouses and partners of permit holders, who, since 15 May 2024, can work without a separate permit.
- Beneficiary of Temporary Protection (BoTP)
- A person protected under the EU Temporary Protection Directive, activated on 4 March 2022 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. BoTPs have immediate access to work and welfare on terms equivalent to EU citizens. Currently extended to March 2027.
- International Protection Applicant (IPA)
- A person applying for refugee status or subsidiary protection under the International Protection Act 2015. Applicants can apply for a Labour Market Access Permission after six months awaiting a first-instance decision (reduced from nine months in 2021).
- Frontier Series
- A CSO designation for releases based on experimental methodology, typically using administrative data sources still under development. The CSO advises particular care interpreting these figures.
1. Who is in Ireland
The usually resident population was estimated at 5,458,600 in April 2025, an increase of 78,300 (+1.5%) on the previous year. Net inward migration accounted for 76% of the increase and natural increase (births minus deaths) for 24%. The total has now exceeded 5 million continuously since 2022.
The number of immigrants in the year to April 2025 was 125,300 – a fall of 16% on the previous year, but still the fourth successive year that immigration has exceeded 100,000. Of those 125,300 immigrants, 31,500 were returning Irish citizens, 25,300 were other EU citizens, 4,900 were UK citizens, and 63,600 were citizens of all other countries. Emigration was 65,600 (down 6.2% on the previous year), of whom 35,000 were Irish citizens. Net migration was 59,700.
Source: CSO Population and Migration Estimates April 2025, Table 1.3. Published 26 August 2025.
The 2024-to-2025 fall was driven almost entirely by lower arrivals in the "Rest of World" category, down from 86,800 to 63,600. The European Migration Network's Asylum and Migration Overview 2024 (published December 2025) attributes this primarily to the continued decline in Ukrainian arrivals, alongside a 10% fall in first-residence permits issued in 2024. Just 9,558 PPSNs were allocated to Ukrainian arrivals in 2024, a 71% decrease on the previous year, itself a substantial decrease on the 2022 peak. EU14 (the pre-2004 member states excluding Ireland and the UK), EU15-to-EU27 (the 2004 and later accession states) and UK inflows were broadly flat.
Looking at flows by country of origin or destination rather than citizenship – a separate CSO table (PEA18) – the year to April 2025 saw 13,500 people move from Ireland to Australia and 10,100 in the opposite direction, the highest emigration to Australia since 2013. Inward migration from the United States rose sharply to 9,600, almost double the previous year and the highest since the CSO began compiling the series.
The Census 2022 baseline
The most detailed structural picture of Ireland's population is from Census 2022, taken on a de facto basis on 3 April 2022. On Census night there were 5,149,139 people in Ireland, of whom 631,785 (12.0%) were non-Irish citizens and 1,017,437 (19.8%) were born outside Ireland. The gap between those two figures reflects naturalisation – people who hold Irish citizenship but were born abroad, including 170,597 dual-Irish citizens, a 63% increase on Census 2016.
The largest non-Irish citizen groups at Census 2022 were, in order: Polish, UK, Indian, Romanian, Lithuanian, Brazilian, Italian, Latvian and Spanish. The largest absolute increases in those born abroad between Census 2016 and Census 2022 were in those born in India (+35,673), Brazil (+23,760) and Romania (+13,758).
Census 2022 and Population Estimates are not directly comparable: The Census is de facto (everyone present in the State on Census night), while the Population Estimates are usually resident. The Census figure of 5,149,139 is therefore lower than would be implied by the April 2022 Population Estimate.
Source: CSO Census 2022 Profile 5: Diversity, Migration, Ethnicity, Irish Travellers and Religion (published 26 October 2023).
Population ageing and labour supply
Ireland's population is ageing. There were 861,100 people aged 65 and over in April 2025, 15.8% of the total – up from 14.1% in 2019. The number aged 0-4 has fallen 19% since 2012, reflecting a steady decline in births since 2010. The CSO's three published labour force projections to 2037 produce different outcomes for net migration: Under the high migration scenario the labour force grows by approximately 610,000 between 2022 and 2037, under the medium scenario by 485,000, and under the low scenario by 337,000. All three scenarios show labour force growth; the scale of growth depends materially on the migration assumption.
2. Who works in Ireland
The Labour Force Survey estimated total employment at 2,833,100 in Q4 2025 (employees plus self-employed), an increase of 455,300 or 19.1% since Q4 2019. The unemployment rate was 5.3% in Q3 2025 – a four-year high but still well below the EU average. The employment rate of those aged 15-64 was 74.6%, the tenth highest in the EU.
The two largest sectors by headcount were Health and Social Work (393,000 people, 13.9% of total employment) and Industry excluding Construction (354,000, 12.5%). Between Q4 2019 and Q4 2025, Health added 95,100 jobs, Industry 66,000, Education 66,000 and Construction 43,900. Professional, Scientific and Technical (+33.3%) and Information and Communication (+32.3%) were the fastest-growing sectors in percentage terms.
For analysis of the nationality composition of the workforce, the CSO publishes a separate, more granular dataset: The Distribution of Earnings by Nationality (DEN01), which counts PAYE-recorded employments and excludes the self-employed. On that basis, total employments rose from 2,184,222 in 2019 to 2,539,554 in 2024, an increase of 355,332. Of that increase, 218,261 (61.4%) was contributed by employees who recorded non-Irish nationality on their PAYE records. In 2024, employees with non-Irish nationality accounted for 697,219 employments, or 27.5% of the total.
The composition of the non-Irish workforce has changed sharply
Within the non-Irish workforce, the nationality mix between 2019 and 2024 shifted materially. Three countries account for the bulk of the increase. Indian nationals rose from 23,223 employees in 2019 to 79,632 in 2024 – an increase of 56,409 or 242.9%. Ukrainian nationals rose from 2,162 to 26,419 – an increase of 24,257 or 1,122%. Brazilian nationals rose from 28,410 to 49,233 – an increase of 20,823 or 73.3%. Smaller but significant additions came from Spain (+61.2%), Italy (+44.4%), and the unspecified "Other" composite group used by the CSO (+54.4%).
On the other side of the picture, Polish nationals fell from 85,921 in 2019 to 81,310 in 2024, a decline of 5.4%, and Lithuanian nationals fell by 4.0%. Romanian nationals grew by 21.2% but more slowly than the non-Irish workforce overall. The CSO does not publish a breakdown of the drivers of those declines; some combination of outward migration, naturalisation into Irish citizenship (which moves an individual into the Irish total), and lower inflows is likely.
Source: CSO Distribution of Earnings by Nationality (DEN01), Table 2.3. Released 19 May 2026.
The result is that Polish nationals (81,310 in 2024) remain the largest single non-Irish nationality in PAYE records, narrowly ahead of Indian nationals (79,632). The picture for the 2004 accession-state cohort (Poland, Lithuania) is one of long-established but no longer growing labour migration; the picture for India, Ukraine and Brazil is of rapid recent growth from different starting points.
Sectoral dependence on non-Irish labour
Non-Irish nationals are unevenly distributed across sectors. In 2024 they accounted for 45.6% of employees in Administrative and Support Services, 45.1% in Accommodation and Food Services, and 41.4% in Information and Communication. At the other end, non-Irish nationals made up 5.9% of employees in Public Administration and Defence and 11.8% in Education. Health and Social Work, despite being a significant source of work-permit demand, sat near the average at 26.0% non-Irish.
The "Administrative and Support Services" label is misleading at first reading. NACE Section N is a residual "support services to other businesses" category covering six distinct activities: Rental and leasing (cars, equipment, intellectual property); employment activities (recruitment and temporary employment agencies, where agency workers are formally employed by the agency but placed at a client site); travel agencies and tour operators; security and investigation; services to buildings and landscape (contract cleaning, window cleaning, grounds-keeping and pest control); and office support and other business support (including call centres, contact centres and customer-service outsourcing). These activities span very different labour markets at very different pay levels. The CSO does not publish a breakdown of the 45.6% non-Irish share by these sub-divisions, so the relative contribution of each is not directly measurable from the available data.
| Sector | Non-Irish share, 2024 |
|---|---|
| Administrative & Support Services | 45.6% |
| Accommodation & Food Services | 45.1% |
| Information & Communication | 41.4% |
| Industry (excl. Construction) | 28.8% |
| Professional, Scientific & Technical | 28.6% |
| Transport & Storage | 26.4% |
| Health & Social Work | 26.0% |
| Wholesale & Retail | 25.9% |
| Construction | 23.3% |
| Financial, Insurance & Real Estate | 23.3% |
| Education | 11.8% |
| Public Administration & Defence | 5.9% |
Source: CSO DEN01 Table 2.4. Shares within each sector.
3. The four legal routes
Foreign nationals working in Ireland in 2024 and 2025 have entered through four legally distinct routes. The framework matters: Each route has different rules of entry, is controlled by a different government department or EU instrument, and is responsive to different policy levers.
EU/EEA free movement
Citizens of EU member states, EEA states (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), and Switzerland. No permit required. Full and immediate access to the labour market. UK citizens are treated alongside this group via the Common Travel Area. Numerically the largest route in stock terms.
Non-EEA employment permits
Permits issued by DETE under the Employment Permits Acts. Requires a job offer at or above defined salary thresholds. Demand-led but policy-controlled. Most permit holders eventually transition to residency-based work rights and exit the active permit count.
Temporary Protection (Ukraine)
Beneficiaries of the EU Temporary Protection Directive (Council Directive 2001/55/EC), activated on 4 March 2022 by Council Decision 2022/382. Immediate right to work without a permit, equivalent to EU citizens. Currently extended to March 2027.
International Protection
Applicants under the International Protection Act 2015 and the Reception Conditions Regulations. Labour Market Access Permission available after six months awaiting a first-instance decision (reduced from nine in 2021). The smallest route in volume terms and the most recently subject to a dedicated CSO release.
Total population in each category, and the work-rights position
Four different measurements are relevant when sizing each category: The total population present in the State, its proportion of the total Irish population and of the non-Irish citizen population, the subset with a right to work (whether unconditional, conditional, or none), and the subset actually recorded in employment. The table below combines the best available CSO and government figures. The categories overlap in some respects (a Polish citizen who has naturalised is recorded as Irish, not Polish; an Indian student becomes a graduate Stamp 1G holder) and the figures come from different reference periods, so they should be read as orders of magnitude rather than a precisely additive ledger.
| Category | Total in Ireland | % of total population | % of non-Irish | In employment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total usually resident population, April 2025 | 5,458,600 | 100% | — | 2,833,100 |
| Irish citizens (incl. dual) | ~4,830,000 | ~88.5% | — | 1,842,335 |
| All non-Irish citizens | ~630,000 | ~11.5% | 100% | 697,219* |
| Route 1: EU/EEA and UK (Common Travel Area) – unconditional right to work | ||||
| Other EU citizens (Census 2022) | 312,909 | ~5.7% | ~49.7% | 274,931 top six† |
| UK citizens (Census 2022) | 83,347 | ~1.5% | ~13.2% | 69,812 |
| Route 2: Non-EEA (employment permits and residency stamps) – permit or stamp-dependent | ||||
| Asian citizens (Census 2022) | ~100,000 | ~1.8% | ~16% | 79,632 Indian + others |
| African citizens (Census 2022) | ~50,000 | ~0.9% | ~8% | n/p |
| Permits ISSUED in 2025 (annual flow) | 31,044 | — | — | All (permit-conditional) |
| Permits issued 2026 YTD (Jan-Apr) | 12,219 | — | — | All (permit-conditional) |
| Route 3: Temporary Protection (Ukraine) – unconditional right to work | ||||
| Cumulative PPSNs since March 2022 | 121,048 | ~2.2% | — | 29,060 (Jan 2026) |
| Administratively active end-2025 | 84,100 | ~1.5% | ~13.4% | 29,060 |
| Route 4: International Protection – conditional right to work only after six months (LMA) | ||||
| In IPAS accommodation end-2025 | 33,241 | ~0.6% | ~5.3% | ~13,000‡ |
| of whom children | ~9,700 | ~0.2% | ~1.5% | None |
| of whom status-granted, awaiting move-on | ~5,000 | ~0.1% | ~0.8% | Subset |
| New IP applications 2024 | 18,560 | ~0.3% | — | n/a (recent) |
| New IP applications 2025 | 13,160 | ~0.2% | — | n/a (recent) |
| LMA permits granted cumulative since 2018 | 20,288 | — | — | Subset (renewable) |
Sources: Total population from CSO PME April 2025; citizenship breakdowns from Census 2022 Profile 5 (a 2022 snapshot, with some categories materially changed since); Routes 1-4 totals from DETE Employment Permits, CSO Ukraine Series 18, Department of Justice IPAS, AIDA, EMN. Proportion columns calculated against the April 2025 total population of 5,458,600 and the ~630,000 non-Irish citizen baseline. *DEN01 counts PAYE employments, not persons, so the 697,219 figure exceeds the Census non-Irish population baseline of ~630,000 for reasons of methodology (employments not persons; PAYE 2024 vs. Census April 2022 snapshot; PAYE includes non-residents working for Irish employers). †Top six EU/EEA-plus-UK nationalities (Polish, UK, Romanian, Lithuanian, Italian, Spanish). ‡Approximate; the CSO publishes employment activity for the DEA-receiving subset of IP applicants only.
Several observations follow from the table. First, the population categories are highly unequal in size – and the proportions matter, because public perception in survey work tends to place the smaller categories at much higher shares than they actually are. EU/EEA citizens (incl. UK) account for roughly two-thirds of the non-Irish citizen population, around 7.2% of Ireland's total population. Asian and African citizens together account for roughly a quarter of non-Irish citizens and around 2.7% of the total population. The Ukrainian Temporary Protection cohort is around 13% of non-Irish citizens and about 1.5% of the total population. The International Protection population currently in IPAS accommodation, despite its prominent share of public debate, is roughly 5% of all non-Irish citizens and approximately 0.6% of Ireland's total population. Including the smaller cohort of IP applicants outside IPAS does not materially change the picture: The total IP-related population in process is well below 1% of Ireland's total population.
Second, the gap between total population and those in employment is wide for every category but for different reasons. For EU/EEA citizens, the gap reflects children, retirees, students and home-makers in the usual proportions of an established cohort. For Ukrainian BoTPs, the gap reflects a young-female-skewed cohort with significant childcare and language-acquisition responsibilities, alongside an older sub-cohort recently arrived. For IP applicants the gap reflects the legal restriction on working in the first six months, the ~9,700 children in IPAS who are not of working age, applicants who have received a first-instance refusal (and thereby lost LMA eligibility) but remain in the system through appeal, and the residual share for which the CSO does not publish a breakdown. The CSO release reports that 77% of the 2022 new-DEA-beneficiary cohort had employment activity by 2024, with the gender split (83% of men, 65% of women) and age structure (highest activity in 25-44) the principal observed variables.
Third, the residency-based workforce that has transitioned out of the active permit count is large. Most non-EEA workers in Ireland in any given year are not on a current employment permit. They have moved onto a Stamp 4 (long-term residence with work rights), Stamp 1G (graduate scheme), or Stamp 3 (partner of a permit holder; work-eligible since May 2024). The illustration is direct: DETE issued 13,566 permits to Indian nationals in 2024, while CSO PAYE records show 79,632 Indian employees in the same year. The difference of roughly 66,000 is accounted for by permit holders from earlier years still in the workforce, residency-based workers who have transitioned off permits, students with work rights, and dependants. The CSO and DETE do not publish a precise decomposition of that gap.
Sources: CSO DEN01 2024 (Routes 1 and 2 stock); DETE Employment Permits 2024 (Route 2 flow); CSO Arrivals from Ukraine Series 18 January 2026 (Route 3 in employment); CSO International Protection Applicants 2022-2024, EMN Ireland (Route 4 indicative).
4. Route 1: EU/EEA free movement
Free movement remains the largest source of foreign labour in Ireland by stock. The six largest EU/EEA nationalities (Polish, UK, Romanian, Lithuanian, Italian, Spanish) together accounted for 274,931 employments in 2024 – 39.4% of the non-Irish workforce. Within this group, two patterns sit side by side: Long-established cohorts (Poland, Lithuania) where employment counts are flat or declining, and newer cohorts (Romania, Italy, Spain) where employment continues to grow.
The Polish cohort is the largest single non-Irish group in 2024 (81,310 employments) but has fallen from 85,921 in 2019 – a 5.4% decline. Lithuanian numbers fell similarly, from 29,106 to 27,937. These shifts in the recorded non-Irish count combine three effects that the CSO does not separately measure: Outward migration, naturalisation (which moves people from non-Irish to Irish on their PAYE record), and lower inflows.
Polish nationals show a distinct sectoral profile. In 2024, 21.3% of Polish employments were in Wholesale and Retail, 21.2% in Industry, 11.5% in Accommodation and Food, and 9.5% in Administrative and Support Services. Lithuanian nationals follow a similar pattern of concentration in Industry and Wholesale and Retail.
UK nationals (69,812 employees in 2024, up 5.5% on 2019) have the most evenly distributed sectoral profile of any nationality group, reflecting their long history of integration. Their largest concentrations are in Health and Social Work (15.6% of UK employments) and Wholesale and Retail (15.4%).
The newer cohorts within Route 1 are smaller but growing fast. Italian and Spanish numbers grew by 44.4% and 61.2% respectively between 2019 and 2024. These cohorts are concentrated in different sectors from the Polish-led cohort: Italian employees show higher representation in Accommodation and Food (17.6% of Italian employments) and Information and Communication (14.1%), reflecting a different migration pattern from the post-2004 accession waves.
5. Route 2: Non-EEA employment permits
The Employment Permits system is administered by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (DETE; renamed from Trade in June 2025). It is the most policy-controlled route and, in flow terms, the most volatile. Permits issued moved from a recession trough of 3,863 in 2013 to a step-change peak of 39,955 in 2022, then 30,981 in 2023, 39,390 in 2024 and 31,044 in 2025. Permits issued in the first four months of 2026 totalled 12,219 – on an annualised basis, around 36,700.
Source: DETE Employment Permit Statistics annual files; EMN Ireland statistics page. Verified against original DETE XLSX files for 2024, 2025 and 2026 YTD.
The 2025 decline of 21% on 2024 reflects several factors operating simultaneously rather than a single cause. DETE introduced a new processing system in April 2025 that caused delays and deterred some applications. Salary thresholds for both the General and Critical Skills Permits had been raised. The 2022 cohort's natural renewal cycle in 2024 produced an unusually high number of renewal permits that did not recur in 2025. The European Migration Network's December 2025 review noted, separately, a 10% fall in first-residence permits issued in 2024 across all categories.
The 2025 decline was concentrated, not uniform
It is important to note that the 2025 fall was not spread evenly across sectors. Four large sectors – Health and Social Work, Information and Communication, Agriculture, and Financial and Insurance – together fell by 10,315 permits. Several other sectors actually grew. The full sectoral picture is shown below.
| Sector (NACE) | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q – Health & Social Work | 12,501 | 7,948 | −36% |
| J – Information & Communication | 6,788 | 3,630 | −47% |
| A – Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing | 3,625 | 1,915 | −47% |
| I – Accommodation & Food Services | 3,358 | 3,499 | +4% |
| C – Manufacturing (all sub-sectors) | 3,022 | 3,105 | +3% |
| K – Financial & Insurance | 2,318 | 1,424 | −39% |
| S – Other Service Activities | 1,772 | 2,087 | +18% |
| F – Construction | 1,523 | 2,031 | +33% |
| H – Transport & Storage | 1,282 | 1,363 | +6% |
| M – Professional, Scientific & Technical | 1,092 | 1,455 | +33% |
| R – Arts, Entertainment & Recreation | 586 | 593 | +1% |
| D – Electricity, Gas, Air Conditioning | 463 | 342 | −26% |
| G – Wholesale & Retail | 441 | 622 | +41% |
| P – Education | 357 | 464 | +30% |
| All other sectors | 262 | 366 | +40% |
| Total | 39,390 | 31,044 | −21% |
Source: DETE Employment Permits XLSX files for 2024 and 2025. Verified line by line from original Department spreadsheets.
By contrast, Construction (+33%), Wholesale and Retail (+41%), Education (+30%) and Professional, Scientific and Technical (+33%) grew. The Construction rise coincided with significant public-sector housing and infrastructure programmes; the underlying drivers of the other rises are not currently documented in any published source.
Indian nationals dominate the permit channel; Philippines now exceeds Brazil
The nationality breakdown of permit recipients shifted in 2025. Indian nationals received 13,566 permits in 2024 (34% of the total) and 9,947 in 2025 (32%). In 2024, the second-largest cohort was Brazilian (4,553), followed by Filipino (4,049). In 2025, Filipino nationals overtook Brazilian: 3,398 versus 3,381. In the first four months of 2026, the Philippines is firmly in second place (1,913) ahead of Brazil (1,397).
| Nationality | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 YTD (Jan-Apr) |
|---|---|---|---|
| India | 13,566 | 9,947 | 3,728 |
| Philippines | 4,049 | 3,398 | 1,913 |
| Brazil | 4,553 | 3,381 | 1,397 |
| China | 1,962 | 1,922 | 667 |
| Pakistan | 1,742 | 1,453 | 499 |
| South Africa | 1,631 | 1,240 | 491 |
| USA | 1,119 | 1,039 | 344 |
| Zimbabwe | 971 | 831 | 373 |
| Nigeria | 974 | 726 | 293 |
| Sri Lanka | 633 | 631 | 321 |
| All other nationalities | 8,190 | 6,477 | 2,193 |
| Total permits issued | 39,390 | 31,044 | 12,219 |
Source: DETE Permits by Nationality XLSX files. Verified directly from Department spreadsheets.
Geographic concentration and employer footprint
Permits in 2026 to date are heavily concentrated geographically: 45.1% (5,515 of 12,219) are in Dublin, followed by Cork (10.2%), Meath, Kildare, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Kerry. Among individual sponsoring employers in the first four months of 2026, healthcare and nursing-home operators dominate the top tier: Redwood Extended Care (137 permits), Costern (108), Resilience Healthcare (91), InisCare (86), Mowlam Healthcare (74), Cork University Hospital (68) and Nua Healthcare (62) are all in the top fifteen. Among non-healthcare employers, the largest sponsors are Dawn Meats (134), Dublin Bus (103), Applus Inspection Services (102), Google Ireland (90), Circet Networks (74), Kel-Tech Engineering (66), Tata Consultancy Services (64), Accenture (63) and Ernst & Young (55).
The composition of the top sponsor list is important. Public conversation about non-EEA employment permits often centres on large technology multinationals, but the data show that in 2026 healthcare operators – especially private extended-care and nursing-home providers – are the largest single category of permit sponsors, followed by meat processing and engineering firms. Big Tech is present but does not dominate the top tier.
The long tail behind the top sponsors is equally significant. In 2025, 8,330 distinct Irish employers received at least one employment permit; 57% of those employers (4,742) received exactly one, and 82% received three or fewer. The top 10 employers between them accounted for under 7% of all permits issued. The permit system supports thousands of SMEs – care facilities, mushroom farms, dental practices, regional restaurants, small clinics, meat processors, hauliers and engineering firms – not just the largest visible employers. A fuller treatment of this point appears in our earlier Enterprise Intelligence Series article, Ireland's hidden engine: What 15 years of work permit data really tell us (April 2026).
From 1 March 2026, minimum salary thresholds rose on a phased basis. The Critical Skills Permit threshold moved from €38,000 to €40,904. The General Employment Permit threshold moved from €34,000 to €36,605. The minimum for meat processors, horticulture workers, healthcare assistants and home carers moved from €30,000 to €32,691. Further increases are scheduled through 2030. Two other 2024 reforms also matter for the route's downstream effects: Since 25 June 2024, permit holders can change employers after nine months without reapplying for their permit; and since 15 May 2024, spouses and partners of permit holders (on Stamp 3) can work without obtaining a separate permit.
6. Route 3: Temporary Protection from Ukraine
The EU Temporary Protection Directive was activated for the first time in its history on 4 March 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, by EU Council Decision 2022/382. The Directive grants beneficiaries immediate right to live and work in any EU member state on essentially the same basis as EU citizens, without an employment permit. The Irish government has extended the regime to March 2027.
The CSO's Frontier Series tracks the cohort through administrative data. Between 4 March 2022 and 1 February 2026, the CSO recorded 121,048 PPSN allocations to Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection (BoTPs) from Ukraine. Of those, 84,100 – 69% – showed activity in administrative records (welfare, payroll, training, or address records) after 30 November 2025. The CSO uses recent administrative activity as a proxy for whether an individual is still present in the State; the cohort has stabilised at around 80,000-85,000 active people since mid-2025.
The full Ukrainian cohort has an unconditional right to work, equivalent to that of EU citizens. The gap between the 84,100 administratively-active total and the 29,060 in PAYE employment in January 2026 is composed of children (the cohort is significantly female-skewed and includes many mothers with school-age children), retirees, people in full-time education or English-language training, those whose Ukrainian qualifications have not yet been recognised in Ireland, and a subset who are not currently working but have been at some point.
Employment
In January 2026, the most recent month for which data are published, 29,060 BoTPs had earnings from PAYE-recorded employment – approximately 35% of the administratively-active cohort. Mean weekly earnings were €540 and median weekly earnings were €537. Of those in employment, 55% were female and 45% male; 20% were under 25 years of age.
The sector mix of Ukrainian employment is distinctive. In January 2026, 42% of working BoTPs were employed in the combined NACE G/H/I grouping (Wholesale, Transport and Accommodation), 17% in Industry, 14% in Public Service, Education and Health, and 14% in Financial, Real Estate and Administrative services. Construction accounted for 6%, ICT and recreation 5%, and Agriculture 1%.
Source: CSO Arrivals from Ukraine in Ireland Series 18, Table 7. Published 18 February 2026.
The CSO data on qualifications
The CSO publishes additional information on the subset of BoTPs who have attended Intreo employment-support events. Of the 53,996 BoTPs who attended an Intreo event between March 2022 and February 2026, 33,763 had their highest qualification recorded; of those, 19,702 (58%) held a qualification at NFQ level 7 or higher (Irish-system undergraduate degree or above). Of 23,906 with recorded previous occupation, 29% had worked as Professionals before arriving in Ireland, 17% as Managers, and 10% as Technicians and Associate Professionals. 52% of Intreo-attending BoTPs were noted as having English language proficiency as a barrier to employment, 93% of whom were aged 25 and over. The CSO notes the qualification profile of Intreo-attendees is higher than would typically be expected in the sectors that account for most BoTP employment (Wholesale, Transport, Accommodation, Industry), though the two are not directly comparable sub-populations.
The CSO release also covers welfare claims, school enrolments (17,378 BoTPs enrolled in primary or secondary education in academic year 2025/26), and further education enrolments (12,037, of which 8,098 are in English-language courses). BoTPs are dispersed across the State to a greater degree than other migrant cohorts: A direct consequence of the Accommodation Recognition Payment (ARP) scheme, under which 18,685 private hosts received payments in early 2026 for accommodating 43,949 BoTPs.
7. Route 4: International Protection
The smallest route in volume terms, and the most recently subject to a dedicated CSO release, is the International Protection (IP) system. The right of IP applicants to access the labour market in Ireland was introduced on 2 July 2018 and reduced from a nine-month to a six-month waiting period in 2021. Permission is granted via a Labour Market Access Permission (LMA), issued digitally since 29 January 2025.
The total IP population in Ireland
The Minister for Justice has stated that at the end of 2025 the State was accommodating 33,241 applicants for international protection in IPAS centres, of whom approximately 9,700 were children and over 5,000 were people whose claims had been granted but who had not yet moved to mainstream housing. A further cohort of IP applicants live outside IPAS accommodation: From 2024 onwards the State has not been in a position to offer IPAS accommodation to every applicant, and as of mid-May 2025 there were 2,987 single adult males awaiting an offer.
The flow into the system has also moderated. New IP applications were 18,560 in 2024 and 13,160 in 2025, a decline of 29%. The annual flow of new DEA beneficiaries was 11,750 in 2022, 10,252 in 2023 and 17,250 in 2024 (the CSO IPA release uses the DEA series as its tracking cohort). The International Protection Office issued 14,100 first-instance decisions in 2024 (of which 3,888 were positive – 3,590 granting protection and 298 humanitarian permission to remain) and over 20,200 first-instance decisions in 2025, a 44% increase. The Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration publishes monthly International Protection Summary Reports tracking applications, decisions, IPAS occupancy and other operational data.
The legal framework is in transition. The International Protection Bill 2026, described by the Minister for Justice as the most significant reform of Irish asylum law in the history of the State, completed its passage through the Oireachtas in April 2026. It gives effect to the EU Migration and Asylum Pact (Regulations 2024/1346, 2024/1347 and 2024/1348), with the Pact's transition deadline set for 12 June 2026. The new regime introduces a single first-instance decision covering refugee status, subsidiary protection and return/permission to stay, followed by a single appeal, replacing the current IPO/IPAT two-stage structure. The medium-term implication is faster processing cycles; the short-term implication is that volumes in the existing system may be unrepresentative of what comes next.
Of the IPAS population, only a subset has a right to work. Children do not. Those still within their first six months of awaiting a first-instance decision do not. Those who have received a first-instance decision (positive or negative) and have not yet been granted status do not, regardless of how long any subsequent appeal takes. Those who have been granted status do (Stamp 4), but for accommodation reasons may remain in IPAS rather than entering the open economy. The remainder – the cohort of applicants more than six months into the process and still awaiting a first-instance decision – may apply for a Labour Market Access Permission.
Cumulatively, since the labour market access route opened in 2018, the Labour Market Access Unit had received 24,392 first-time applications by early 2025, of which 20,288 were granted, 3,361 refused, and approximately 3,000 were pending. Processing times had reduced to about 90 days for first-time permissions by 2024. LMA permissions are valid for 12 months and only while an application remains pending; the holder must seek renewal until they receive a first-instance decision.
Employment outcomes
The CSO's first dedicated employment analysis of IP applicants was published on 13 February 2026, covering 2022-2024. The release focuses on those IP applicants who are or were beneficiaries of the Daily Expense Allowance (DEA) – a means-tested weekly welfare payment available only to people in, or awaiting, accommodation provided by IPAS. The DEA group is a significant subset of all IP applicants but not the totality. The DEA cohort grew past 10,000 in 2022 and stood at over 17,000 in 2024.
The CSO release shows that of the cohort who became new DEA beneficiaries in 2022 (aged 15 and over), 77% had employment activity in 2024 – defined as any PAYE-recorded employment of at least two weeks' duration and €500 in earnings in the year. The gender split was 83% of men and 65% of women. The 25-44 age group recorded the highest employment activity. By 2024, IP applicants in employment had a median weekly earnings figure of €544.09, compared with a general employee median of €711.56.
The sectoral concentration of IP applicants in PAYE-recorded employment is heavily weighted toward service sectors. The three largest sectors for the IPA group were Administrative and Support Services (with a median weekly wage of €577.49 for the IPA group), Accommodation and Food Services (€445.24), and Wholesale and Retail Trade (€516.44). Where IP applicants worked in higher-paying sectors their earnings tracked closer to the general median: Construction had a median of €659.72 for the IPA group, and Information and Communication earnings were similarly high.
Nationality composition is different from other routes
The top nationalities among new DEA beneficiaries in 2024 differ markedly from those in Route 2. Nigeria, Jordan, Somalia and Pakistan each contributed more than 1,000 new beneficiaries in 2024. Algeria and Georgia were similarly large in earlier years.
The CSO release also compares the IPA group's median earnings, by country of nationality, with the median earnings of the general population from the same country. For some nationalities the medians are comparable: Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia each show IPA-group medians that are close to or higher than their general-population medians, which itself is informative about the composition of those national groups in the Irish labour market. For others – Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe – the general-population median is substantially higher than the IPA-group median, reflecting that those national groups have longer-established cohorts in Ireland working at higher skill levels.
Cost of the IP accommodation system
The IPAS budget for 2025 was €1.2 billion, up from €1.005 billion actually spent in 2024 and €651.7 million in 2023. Over 90% of IPAS accommodation continues to be provided commercially through hotels, B&Bs and similar arrangements, with the Department of Justice working to shift the mix toward state-owned capacity under the Comprehensive Accommodation Strategy (27 March 2024). That strategy planned for an annual average of 13,000 to 16,000 arrivals between 2024 and 2028; the 2025 outturn of 13,160 sits at the bottom of the planning range. The average length of stay in IPAS accommodation in early 2026 was reported by the Minister for Justice at 24.8 months. Of the over 20,200 first-instance decisions issued by the IPO in 2025, the refusal rate was 81.4%.
The CSO IPA release is based on PAYE Modernisation tax data and excludes self-employed workers, except for those who themselves issue PAYE records. It captures the DEA-receiving subset of IP applicants only. The broader IP-applicant population in employment is somewhat larger than these figures alone suggest, but the DEA group is sufficient to establish reliable employment outcomes for a meaningful share of the cohort.
8. How the four routes appear in different sectors
The four routes have meaningfully different sectoral footprints. EU/EEA workers are concentrated in Industry, Wholesale and Retail, and Construction – the pattern set by the post-2004 accession waves. Non-EEA permit holders are concentrated in Health and Social Work, ICT, Agriculture, Construction (rising) and Hospitality, reflecting the official Critical Skills and General Employment Permit occupations lists. Ukrainian BoTPs are concentrated in the Wholesale/Transport/Accommodation grouping, with significant presence in Industry and Public Service/Education/Health. IP applicants in employment are concentrated in Administrative and Support Services, Accommodation and Food, and Wholesale and Retail.
For specific nationalities, the pattern sharpens further. Indian nationals – drawn through both the permit channel and student/graduate routes – have a sectoral profile heavily skewed to Health (32.2% of all Indian employments in 2024) and Information and Communication (14.3%). Brazilian nationals concentrate in Accommodation and Food (22.8%), Administrative and Support Services (15.9%), and Industry (14.3%). Ukrainian nationals concentrate in Accommodation and Food (25.3%), Industry (16.9%), and Wholesale and Retail (15.6%).
| Nationality | Largest sector in 2024 | Share within nationality |
|---|---|---|
| India | Human Health & Social Work | 32.2% |
| Ukraine | Accommodation & Food Services | 25.3% |
| Brazil | Accommodation & Food Services | 22.8% |
| Poland | Wholesale & Retail (Industry close at 21.2%) | 21.3% |
| Italy | Accommodation & Food (with I&C at 14.1%) | 17.6% |
| UK | Health & Social Work (Wholesale close at 15.4%) | 15.6% |
Source: CSO DEN01 Table 2.5, 2024. Each row is the largest sector for that nationality.
Three observations emerge. First, the sectors with the highest non-Irish dependence (Administrative and Support Services, Accommodation and Food) have heterogeneous nationality mixes drawing from Brazilian, Ukrainian, Polish, Italian and the "Other" composite group – not from a single national source. Second, the sectors with the highest non-Irish share by percentage are not the ones with the most active permits: Administrative and Support Services and Accommodation and Food are largely staffed through Routes 1, 3 and 4 rather than Route 2. Third, the Health sector occupies a particular position: It has by far the highest absolute permit volume of any sector (12,501 in 2024, 7,948 in 2025) but a non-Irish share that is only middling (26.0%), because the underlying workforce is so large.
9. Earnings by nationality and route
The DEN01 dataset publishes, for each nationality, both the share of total employments and the share of total weekly earnings. Comparing the two is the most direct way to see whether a nationality group earns proportionally more, less or the same as its share of headcount would imply. Doing so shows that the earnings distribution within the non-Irish workforce is wider than the aggregate Irish-versus-non-Irish gap suggests.
| Nationality | % of all employments, 2024 | % of all weekly earnings, 2024 | Earnings-to-employment ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ireland | 72.5% | 75.5% | 1.04 |
| India | 3.1% | 3.4% | 1.10 |
| UK | 2.7% | 3.2% | 1.19 |
| Italy | 1.0% | 1.0% | 1.00 |
| Spain | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.89 |
| Poland | 3.2% | 2.5% | 0.78 |
| Romania | 1.9% | 1.4% | 0.74 |
| Lithuania | 1.1% | 0.8% | 0.73 |
| Brazil | 1.9% | 1.2% | 0.63 |
| Ukraine | 1.0% | 0.5% | 0.50 |
| Other countries | 10.5% | 9.8% | 0.93 |
| All non-Irish | 27.5% | 24.5% | 0.89 |
Source: CSO DEN01 (Employments and Earnings), 2024. Ratio of earnings share to employment share. A ratio of 1.0 indicates a nationality earns exactly its headcount share of total earnings; above 1.0 indicates higher-than-proportional earnings, below 1.0 indicates lower.
The pattern is consistent. Indian and UK nationals each earn slightly more than their share of headcount would imply (ratios of 1.10 and 1.19, or +10% and +19% over their headcount shares respectively). The UK figure reflects a long-established cohort drawn through the Common Travel Area over several decades and now concentrated in Health and Social Work and other higher-skill occupations; the Indian figure reflects the post-2018 surge in skilled-route arrivals into Information and Communication, Health, Financial Services, and Professional Services. Italian nationals are at parity with their headcount share. At the other end, Polish, Romanian and Lithuanian nationals earn roughly 21-27% less than their headcount share, reflecting concentration in Industry, Wholesale and Retail, and Accommodation and Food. Brazilian nationals earn 37% less, and Ukrainian nationals 50% less – the largest gap in the dataset, consistent with the recency of their arrival and the sectoral profile shown in the Ukraine release. These gaps reflect sectoral and tenure distribution, not pay-per-job within the same occupation.
The general earnings picture
Looking at absolute earnings, the general employee median in 2024 was €711.56 per week. The International Protection Applicants group median was €544.09, about 24% below. The Ukrainian BoTP median in January 2026 was €537. Earnings vary much more by sector than by nationality: The sectoral median ranged from €391.62 in Accommodation and Food Services to €1,440.36 in Information and Communication in 2024. A permit holder in Information and Communication – the second-largest permit sector – was on a median weekly wage about three and a half times that of a Ukrainian BoTP working in Wholesale, Transport and Accommodation.
An ownership-of-employer lens
Looking at where earnings actually accrue, Irish-owned firms employed 74.9% of all employees in 2023 but paid 65.2% of total employee earnings. US-owned firms employed 9.0% of employees but paid 17.1% of earnings, and accounted for 24.1% of all earnings in the Financial, Insurance and Real Estate sector. US-owned firms accounted for 59.1% of all sectoral earnings in Information and Communication in 2023. Non-Irish workers are over-represented in both the highest-paying foreign-owned sector (US-owned ICT) and the lowest-paying domestic sectors (hospitality, retail, administrative support).
The CSO publishes earnings by nationality at sector level but does not currently support a controlled within-occupation comparison – that is, comparing the wages of a non-Irish nurse, accountant or software engineer with those of an Irish person doing the same job. The earnings differences shown in this article reflect the sectoral and occupational distribution of each group, not differential pay for equivalent work. Readers drawing any inference about wage levels for the same job should look to the CSO's occupation-level surveys, which use different methodology.
10. Cross-cutting observations
The data above support several cross-cutting points that any reasonable reading should accommodate, regardless of policy preference.
The 27.5% non-Irish share of employees is the result of decades of inflows, not just recent migration. Polish workers, who number 81,310 in 2024, predominantly arrived in the years following Poland's EU accession in 2004. UK workers are part of a long-established population. Indian, Brazilian and Filipino workers reflect a mix of permit-channel and student-graduate transitions over the past decade. The cohorts are at different stages of integration into Irish society.
The 61.4% contribution to 2019-2024 employee growth is a real measured share, but the composition matters. The CSO's headline figure captures the period in which Indian, Ukrainian and Brazilian employee numbers grew rapidly and the EU cohort plateaued. The same calculation done over a different period would produce a different number. The 61.4% reflects the specific dynamics of post-pandemic labour-market recovery in Ireland, including the Temporary Protection cohort, the 2022 permits step-change, and the slow growth of the indigenous working-age population.
The four routes are responsive to different policy levers. The permit channel responds to occupations lists and salary thresholds. The Ukraine route responds to the EU-level decision on Temporary Protection (currently due to expire in March 2027) and to bilateral diplomatic conditions. The IP route responds to first-instance decision rates and Reception Conditions Regulations. Free movement responds to EU membership and the Common Travel Area. A reduction in any one route does not automatically displace demand to another, because the routes serve different sectors, occupations and skill levels.
The residency-based workforce is larger than the active permit stock. Most non-EEA workers in Ireland are not on a current permit. They have transitioned to Stamp 4 or other residency-based work rights. The Indian comparison (13,566 permits issued versus 79,632 PAYE employees in 2024) makes the point in scale. Policy focused on annual permit volumes captures only the front door of this route, not the larger room behind it.
The earnings distribution among non-Irish workers is wider than the headline gap suggests. The earnings-to-headcount comparison set out in Section 9 shows Indian and UK nationals earning proportionally more than their headcount share, and Polish, Romanian, Lithuanian, Brazilian and Ukrainian nationals earning proportionally less. These differences principally reflect sectoral concentration rather than within-occupation pay.
Two key data gaps for economic and infrastructure planning
The data this article works with permits a great deal of useful description of the present and the recent past. It is materially weaker on two questions essential for forward planning: How many non-Irish nationals are currently authorised to work in Ireland and on what basis, and what the equivalent numbers are projected to be in five, ten or fifteen years.
The stock of currently valid permission to work. DETE publishes only flow data – permits issued, refused and withdrawn in each calendar year – and there is no DETE statistical release of currently valid employment permits or active permit holders at a point in time. The reasons are structural: Most non-EEA workers transition out of the active permit count after 21 months on a Critical Skills Permit or 57 months on a General Employment Permit, moving onto Stamp 4 long-term residence permission administered by the Department of Justice's Immigration Service Delivery (ISD), not DETE. The custodian of the residence-stock data is ISD via the Irish Residence Permit (IRP) register, but the IRP register has not been published as a stock series with breakdowns by stamp type and nationality. Ireland also sits outside the EU residence-permit-stock reporting system: Eurostat's migr_resvalid dataset (which records 5.6 million valid permits for Germany, 4.3 million for France, 4.1 million for Spain at end-2024) explicitly excludes Ireland and Denmark because both opted out of the EU Single Permit Directive.
The result is a measurement asymmetry. Each year the public learns precisely how many permits were issued (31,044 in 2025), refused (3,432) and withdrawn. But the country does not know with any precision how many non-EEA nationals are currently in Ireland with permission to work, how that breaks down by stamp type, how many of those are actually working at any given point, or how the stock has evolved over time. The CSO uses residence-permit stock information internally for coherence with the Population and Migration Estimates, but does not publish it as a standalone series.
Forward projections of the non-Irish workforce. The CSO publishes the Population and Labour Force Projections 2023-2057 with three scenarios governed by different aggregate net-migration assumptions, but only at the level of total population and total labour force. It does not publish projections of the non-Irish population by citizenship, of the non-Irish workforce by route or stamp type, or of sectoral demand for non-Irish labour. The Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform's National Planning Framework, the Housing Commission's accommodation analyses, the Skills and Labour Market Research Unit at SOLAS, and the National Skills Strategy all operate without a published, agreed projection of the non-Irish workforce or its likely composition.
The planning consequence. Both gaps matter for the same reason. Workforce planning, sectoral skills policy, accommodation planning, school place planning, healthcare workforce planning and integration policy all benefit from knowing not only how many people are currently authorised to live and work in the State and on what basis, but also what the trajectory under different policy and external scenarios looks like. The data exist within ISD's administrative systems; the projections would require an inter-agency exercise drawing on CSO methodology, ISD records, DETE permit flow data and Department of Justice IP statistics. Closing both gaps would not resolve the policy questions, but it would mean the policy questions are discussed against a shared factual base rather than each commentator's preferred fragment of one.
Conclusions
Migrant workers in Ireland do not arrive through a single channel. The 27.5% non-Irish share of PAYE-recorded employees in 2024 is the product of four legally distinct routes operating under four different sets of rules: EU and EEA free movement (the largest by stock), non-EEA employment permits and their downstream into long-term residency, the EU Temporary Protection cohort from Ukraine, and the International Protection system. Each route is responsive to a different policy lever, drawn from a different set of countries, lands in different sectors, and produces different earnings outcomes. Policy that treats migrant labour as a single phenomenon misses what is actually a portfolio of four very different flows.
The most consequential structural fact in the data is the gap between the active permit stock (about 31,000 issued in 2025) and the visible non-EEA workforce (about 330,000 of the 697,219 non-Irish employments). Policy focused only on annual permit issuance captures one channel of one route; the larger story is what happens after permit holders transition to long-term residency.
The corresponding publication gap is what hampers most informed policy debate. Ireland publishes detailed flow data on permits, applications and decisions, but does not publish a stock of currently valid permission to work by stamp type and nationality. The CSO publishes population and labour-force projections to 2057, but only at the aggregate level – there is no published projection of the non-Irish population by citizenship or of the non-Irish workforce by route. The data and methodology to do both exist within CSO and ISD systems. They should be published.
Within the demographic context the CSO has projected – labour force growth under all three migration scenarios to 2037, but at very different totals depending on the assumption – the four routes will continue to operate, and policy choices made about any one of them will reshape the others. A factual reference, kept up to date and visible to everyone in the debate, is the floor under any decision worth making.
Data sources
Primary data
1. Central Statistics Office – Population and Migration Estimates April 2025. Published 26 August 2025.
cso.ie – Population and Migration Estimates April 2025
2. Central Statistics Office – Business in Ireland 2025: Labour Market and Social Sustainability. Published 19 May 2026.
cso.ie – Business in Ireland 2025 Labour Market
3. Central Statistics Office – Distribution of Earnings by Nationality. PxStat table DEN01 (Employments and Earnings), last updated 3 September 2025. All nationality employment counts and earnings shares used in this article verified directly against the source XLSX.
data.cso.ie – DEN01
4. Central Statistics Office – Census of Population 2022 Profile 5: Diversity, Migration, Ethnicity, Irish Travellers and Religion. Published 26 October 2023. Citizenship tables (1.1 to 1.6) accessed at the dedicated Citizenship sub-page.
cso.ie – Census 2022 Profile 5 Citizenship
5. Central Statistics Office – Arrivals from Ukraine in Ireland Series 18. Published 18 February 2026. CSO Frontier Series.
cso.ie – Arrivals from Ukraine Series 18
6. Central Statistics Office – International Protection Applicants: Demographic and Employment Insights 2022-2024. Published 13 February 2026. CSO Frontier Series.
cso.ie – International Protection Applicants 2022-2024
7. Central Statistics Office – Labour Force Survey Q4 2025.
cso.ie – Labour Force Survey Q4 2025
8. Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment – Employment Permit Statistics 2024 and 2025; 2026 year-to-date. Verified against the original Department spreadsheets covering permits by nationality, sector, county, and sponsoring employer.
enterprise.gov.ie – Employment Permit Statistics
9. European Migration Network (EMN) Ireland – Employment Permits statistics page. Maintains the canonical time series from 2009.
emn.ie – Employment Permits
10. Department of Justice / International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) – Facts and Figures. Weekly publication of IPAS accommodation totals by county. Total figures and ministerial statements drawn from October 2025 parliamentary replies by Minister Jim O'Callaghan and the RTÉ News report of 1 February 2026 on the IPAS 2025 budget.
gov.ie – IPAS
11. Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration – International Protection in Numbers. Monthly International Protection Summary Reports (2024-2026) publishing applications, first-instance decisions, IPAT appeal outcomes, top-10 nationalities, average processing times, and IPAS occupancy. Primary administrative source for IP flow data.
gov.ie – International Protection in Numbers
12. Asylum Information Database (AIDA) – Ireland: Access to the labour market. European Council on Refugees and Exiles country report. Cumulative Labour Market Access Unit data drawn from 2024 and 2025 updates.
asylumineurope.org – Ireland
13. CSO – Insights on Applicants of International Protection Using Administrative Data 2024. CSO Frontier Series. Annual flow of new DEA beneficiaries.
cso.ie – Insights on Applicants of International Protection
14. CSO – Population and Labour Force Projections 2023-2057. Published 16 July 2024. Three scenarios under low, medium and high migration assumptions.
cso.ie – Population and Labour Force Projections 2023-2057
Data integrity
Every figure in this article has been verified directly against the named primary source or, in the case of DETE permit statistics, against the original Department XLSX files. Where year-on-year comparisons are drawn, the same definition has been applied to both endpoints. The article uses CSO and EMN published values throughout; no figures are derived through onward modelling, estimation or interpolation. Where the data are categorised by the CSO as Frontier Series (Ukraine arrivals, International Protection Applicants), this status is noted.
Two important measurement notes apply throughout. The Distribution of Earnings by Nationality (DEN01) counts PAYE-recorded employments, not persons; an individual with more than one job appears more than once. Nationality on the PAYE record reflects current declared citizenship; people who have naturalised as Irish citizens appear in the Irish total regardless of where they were born. As a result, Polish, UK and other long-resident cohorts may be understated in 2024 relative to their underlying foreign-born populations, and the Irish total includes a substantial number of people born outside the State.
