In praise of our non-nationals making a huge contribution to Mayo society

by Dr. Richard Martin

I GOT a bad cut earlier this summer. I was working in a derelict house and the place had to ripped apart before any construction work could proceed.

I like working on my own. I can work at my own speed and rhythm and dream the day away.

I was there on my own for a few days, ripping out floors, knocking walls and, on the third day, I went into the bathroom.

Away I went banging and clattering with a sledgehammer. I gave the wall a right thump and I didn’t jump back in time. I was day dreaming. Lost in thought.

The tray of tiles dropped and sure enough sliced my left forearm wide open. It was painful and I needed medical attention. I was afraid I’d pass out if I lost too much blood so I hopped in the car straight away and drove straight for the emergency department in Castlebar.

I went to the receptionist at the counter and told her my situation and sat down in the waiting area. A few minutes later a nurse called me into the triage room. Name. Date of Birth. Blood Pressure. Temperature. Heart Rate.

A few short minutes later I was brought to the ambulatory ED adjoining the main hospital. It’s a prefab. I was told to wait in a room. Not less than 10 minutes passed and a surgical house officer joined me. He cleaned the wound. Injected lidocaine for the pain and sutured the wound.

From the moment the accident happened to the wound being cleaned, sutured and stitched it took roughly one hour.

And who did all of this? Non-nationals. All the nurses were Indian. The doctor is from Kazakhstan. He went to medical school in Lithuania and is now living and working here in Ireland. As I write the wound has completely healed. No infection. No hassle. Nothing.

What I’ve just wrote isn’t an opinion. It’s my experience. It’s my lived experience that non-nationals contribute so much to this island every single day. Our health system would completely collapse.

The statistics don’t lie.

Over 50% of nurses and midwives working in Ireland are non-Irish nationals trained abroad.

Indian-trained nurses (18,500) alone account for roughly 22% of the total nursing workforce (roughly 85,000). Filipino nurses (6,000) represent another 7% of the total nursing workforce.

Doctors trained abroad constitute 43% of Ireland’s medical workforce. The bottom line is our health service is totally dependent on non-nationals. So where is all the hate coming from?

Recently, Indian immigrants have experienced appalling racism and violence on the streets of our nation. There has been a clear surge in attacks. Since mid-July, there have been 13 such incidents reported to the Indian embassy in Dublin. It’s disgraceful and shameful.

There has been a rise in support electorally at the ballot box for far right fringe candidates across the country who are anti-immigration. But, I’m hopeful and positive about the future.

I taught in St Gerald’s last year. The school has never been more diverse. Everyone got along. The silent majority don’t agree with anti-immigration agenda. Those of us that can think know that we are a nation of immigrants ourselves who were scattered to the four corners of the globe seeking refuge.

A lot of the politicians are on the fence on the issue. Hoping it will go away. They are on the fence because they want to protect their seats.

They don’t want to commit either way.

In Mayo, of the 30 elected councillors, five TD’s, one MEP and one senator, only two have stood out over the last few year.

Ger Deere and Rose-Conway Walsh. Through his work in the Castlebar Tidy Towns, Ger Deere has come in contact with lots of IPAS and Ukrainian immigrants. He didn’t duck the issue and he along with others in the Tidy Towns did their utmost to support and integrate them into our town and society.

That’s commendable. He took a political risk. And in the end he came home on the first count behind Micheal Kilcoyne.

In the lead up to the local elections last year, he was insulted, jeered, kicked, bullied and spat at by some locals. Not immigrants. A very small group of Castlebar locals. Because of the very prominent way he and others helped assimilate and integrate refugees into our community. That’s shameful and wrong.

Of all the politicians in our county, the one with the greatest moral courage and fibre is Rose Conway Walsh, even more so than Ger Deere. The anti-immigration issue has split the Sinn Fein working class base. It’s contentious across the social divide and party affiliations, but none more so than SF.

She was under tremendous pressure last year particularly after the local elections when Sinn Fein performed very poorly, but she didn’t buckle. She refused to engage in punch down cowardly weak politics and stayed true to her convictions. Ditto Gerry Murray.

I went on the CRC radio show with her last year with Aidan Crowley. I had wrote a series of articles criticising SF and she wanted to challenge me head on which I duly obliged. At one stage in the debate we discussed immigration and she stated that she’d rather leave politics than go down the road of anti-immigrant policies and racism. I was impressed. Hard not to be.

Given that SF had been wiped out in the locals and the opinion polls were showing an alarming drop in support for SF, it was admirable to see a politician with courage and conviction prepared to face the electorate on a divisive and potentially career ending issue.

In the end it all worked out. She did face the electorate. She topped the poll. Number one. The first woman to top the poll in Mayo since independence in 2022. Leadership is about leading, not cowing to the prevailing wind. RCW showed real leadership and moral fibre last year. Could she potentially lead SF?

It’s not impossible. Mary Lou would have to step aside, but if Mary Lou runs for the presidency that leaves a vacancy. SF have to run a candidate. As I write it’s looking like Heather Humphreys is the front runner. We’ve never had a FG president but that’s hardly the reason why we should have one either.

You have to earn the right to be there. It’s unlikely Bertie will be the FF candidate. Too many people got hurt during the crash. Micheal Martin wants to move FF forward not backwards.

I still feel there’s a sting in the tail yet. A week is a long time in politics. The race for the Aras is only kicking off.