Not only is Polish the most commonly spoken foreign language in Ireland it surpasses even Irish!

The call for recognition of Polish came at the same time as a cross-governmental report in Britain, 'The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration', attributed 17% of economic growth between 2004 and 2005 to immigration. In the final quarter of last year, foreign born workers accounted for 12.5% of the British workforce and 10% of the Irish workforce.

The Polish plumber has become a symbol of the reliable, hard-working newcomer who has filled yawning gap for many individuals and businesses. The report indicted that employers said they employed immigrants because they could not recruit indigenous workers and they preferred immigrants because they were more reliable, willing to work hard, and were motivated.

This study mirrors findings of the Institute of Directors that found that immigrant workers significantly out performed the existing workforce in terms of productivity, education and skills, work ethic, reliability and the amount of sick leave they took.

The report has implication for even peripheral areas such as the North West as it found that, on average, foreign-born workers in full time employment have higher skills than their native born counterparts and earn higher wages. The report stated 'native workers sometimes proved unreliable in certain sectors, especially agriculture, hotels and catering, which makes a business difficult to run.

Some employers had tried recruiting applicants via a Jobcentre but found that they sometimes turned up for interviews purely to get a form signed to enable them to receive jobseekers allowance.' These words reminded me of a debacle, not that long ago, in Strabane when another accident-prone council revealed it had received a letter from a major inward investor to the effect that it was having difficulties in recruiting locals and was forced to seek immigrant workers. The story was quite inaccurate in the detail but it was damaging to the efforts of all those working tirelessly to make Strabane an attractive location to investors.

The report also indicated that many Poles, for example, say that they do not want to remain here for the whole of their lives; most want to earn money and develop skills to use back home. Their leaving would expose the glaring gaps in the skills of the indigenous population and this is an urgent issue that the Executive at Stormont and Government in Dublin should tackle. This is one the bread and butter issues that politicians are so keen to talk about in sound bites but little address.

Last year, I had an interesting insight into the local popular reaction to foreign workers. The promoters of a potential major industrial project held a series of meetings with community groups on the environmental issues that the project might raise.

A number of the community groups were completely uninterested in the environmental issues and only asked if their children would get the jobs or would they go to Polish workers!