The current heightened awareness of racist attacks on Indian nationals in Ireland may be more attributable to increased sharing of experiences and media reporting than any dramatic growth in the number of incidents, some of those living here believe.
However, they say it does have the potential to deter healthcare professionals living in India, currently weighing up their career options, from coming to Ireland.
Janet Baby Joseph, a nurse who moved here from India 10 years ago and works in Clonakilty, expresses surprise at the scale of the sudden focus on racism towards the community in recent weeks. However, the impact has been clear with calls from colleagues asking if it is safe to bring visiting family members around Cork in the evening. She’s also received calls from India as friends and family become alarmed by media reporting there of attacks.
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In a decade, though, she has never had a bad experience of note in either Cork or Clonakiltyand speaks with huge warmth about the welcome she has received in the latter.
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As somebody who is involved in both the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Indian Nurses Association she has, she believes, a good sense of what is happening with her colleagues in the sector. There has not, she says, been any sudden talk of a spike in incidents, a view borne out by Garda statistics.
Still, “people ask me is it safe to go out and what can I say? I have never suffered any impact but I cannot guarantee it. I think in the time I have been here what has changed most is the technology. Social media is so prevalent now and so when something happens everybody knows about it so quickly.
“Unfortunately, though, at home it’s all in the news, on the television, in the newspapers what’s going on in Ireland and they’re all checking: ‘are we okay here?’. So anybody, any nurse, who has their exams all done and is getting ready to come to Ireland will be warned by at least one family member about their choice and maybe they will take a step back.
“It is not good, because nobody has the right to touch somebody else and it is terrible when it is because of race. But these are occasional incidents, here and there, which can have a negative impact on the country.”
The Irish health system is heavily reliant on Indian healthcare professionals, particularly nurses.
About a fifth of nurses working here, 18,464 of 84,213 in 2024, trained in India.
In 2023, twice as many new nurses registered in Ireland (3,272 versus 1,609) were from India as opposed to being educated in this country.
The figure for Irish nurses qualifying is increasing, very slowly, year on year, as considerable efforts are made to train more here. In the meantime, India is the country providing by far the greatest number of qualified staff to the system.
In a statement the HSE said it “unequivocally condemns all incidents of racist abuse and assaults of people from abroad, their families and the wider community”. It said healthcare professionals from India, Africa and other Asian countries account for 23 per cent of HSE nurses and midwives.
It said the effectiveness of “many essential health services in Ireland would be seriously threatened” without such international staff.
“I didn’t take somebody else’s job when I came here. Indians aren’t stealing Irish people’s jobs, I do think there is a bit of education needed around that,” says Joseph. “There was a vacancy which nobody else was filling. None of the agencies, including the HSE or whoever, can recruit from outside the EU without advertising here in Ireland for so many days. It’s only if they find there’s no appropriate candidates in Ireland they can go looking.”
The routine lack of appropriate candidates has resulted in a rapid increase in the number of Indian nurses – a major component of the Indian community in Ireland. The community is a hugely successful one, with particularly high rates of employment generally in highly skilled roles and with significantly higher median earnings in 2023 than other nationalities, including the Irish – €56,191 versus €44,483 according to the Central Statistics Office.
The speed in the increase of new arrivals – 3,100 new PPS numbers were issued to Indians in 2015 compared to 25,523 last year – is remarkable. Just 0.3 per cent of the Indian population here is aged over 60 while more than three quarters – 76.7 per cent in 2023 – are between 25 and 39.
Of about 80,000 Indians working in Ireland in 2023, almost a third were employed in health sciences with 11 per cent each in scientific and professional activities or wholesale and resale activities.
Based in Wexford, Dr George Leslie Thomas Prekattil sees the relationship between Ireland and its Indian community as a mutually beneficial one. He hopes it will not be impacted by incidents of racism or the recent publicity around them.
He first arrived here in 1998 and had spells away subsequently before eventually settling in Enniscorthy as a GP. He says there seems to have been a slight increase in the number of attacks recently and, as he speaks to The Irish Times, cites a Whatsapp message he has just received with news of another.
However, he also believes community members are quicker to tell each other when something happens.
Referring to recent attack on a newly arrived tech worker in Tallaght, he says: “That incident may have prompted others, who had kept quiet about their negative experiences before, to speak out online.
“Personally, I haven’t experienced anything like this where I live. In my experience, Ireland is home to very friendly and kind people, with a strong tradition of welcoming and respecting others. While these few incidents have understandably caused some fear, we remain united and resilient. We’re here to contribute to this country’s economy and build a better future together.”
