If you want to be an Irish citizen, you must be the sugar in the milk
The Parsis are a small but successful minority group who emigrated to India centuries ago. Today, they are associated with success in business and culture — for example, the Tata family and Farrokh Bulsara, aka Freddie Mercury.
They left their home in Persia as they were unwilling to give up their Zoroastrian faith for their nation’s new one, Islam. When they arrived in India, King Jadhav Rana, who welcomed guests, did not want them to stay. He explained that his kingdom was full and sent them a glass of milk full to the brim to demonstrate his dilemma.
Article by Leo Varadkar | The Times Ireland
The Parsis got the message and added a small amount of sugar to the milk before returning it to King Rana. It did not overflow. Rather, it made the drink sweeter. The king allowed them to stay.
This story, I think, demonstrates how migration and new people coming to settle in your country can be a blessing, so long as the numbers are not too large and so long as they are allowed to integrate, to mix their culture into the prevailing culture of their new land — not multiculturalism or assimilation, but a melting pot.
It also demonstrates that no culture is static. It evolves over time, absorbing much of what surrounds it. Right-wing nationalist ideas about a pure and perfect past that we should strive to return to are little more than ahistorical fantasies. National identity should not be exclusive, about who we are not. It should be inclusive, about who we are and want to become.
In Ireland, we are having a lively debate about migration policy. That’s welcome. Any such debate must be based on facts and not just feelings, and must acknowledge the complexities of the issue.
The fact that something is complex does not mean it can’t be understood clearly. It just means it’s not simple and can’t be reduced to a slogan, graph or short video. You do not have to pick a side. You can have a nuanced opinion somewhere in between.
In having these debates, one of the false assumptions I often encounter is that all migrants who come to Ireland want to settle here. They don’t. We should understand this better as a country as that’s exactly our own experience. Every year about 30,000 Irish people leave and roughly the same number return.
In the past three years, over 300,000 foreign citizens have moved to Ireland and about 100,000 have left. Many more will leave in the years to come — students, people here to gain work experience or to make some money before moving back home to raise a family, and many Ukrainians, once the war is over and rebuilding under way.
One most obvious example is the Polish. Polish people still come to Ireland but the total number here has halved from a peak of 200,000. Poland’s economy is thriving and that’s drawing its people home, just like ours did.
I believe we should have different hopes and expectations for those who plan to settle here and those who do not. The Irish diaspora in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are not expected to grow beards or cover their heads, and few speak Arabic.
Irish people in Bondi and Perth barely know all the words of Waltzing Matilda let alone Advance Australia Fair, the national anthem. What does it matter whether they cheer for Ireland or Australia in rugby when they are not going to stay for ever anyway?
And so, we should remember that many of the people who are migrants in our country do not intend to settle here. They are guests in our country and should be treated just as we would hope to be treated if we were in another country; provided, of course, that they are here legally.
We should expect something different from those who become Irish citizens. In becoming a citizen, you gain the right to stay forever, to vote in all our elections, to hold public office, and to support and protection when abroad. You also gain the right to free movement to the UK and EU.
The Irish passport is powerful. In return, new citizens owe loyalty to state and a commitment to integrate into our society; to become the sugar in the milk.
In recent years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of people granted Irish citizenship. To be clear, these are not people who have an Irish grandparent or parent. These are naturalised citizens who applied and were accepted, mostly, after five years or more of legal residence and good standing in Ireland.
Between 2016 and 2019, Ireland granted citizenship to 5,000-10,000 people a year; the number dipped a little in the pandemic years and bounced back to 13,596 in 2022, rising to 18,265 in 2023 and 24,068 in 2024. In 2025, the numbers broke 30,000 in a single year for the first time, more than double the figure of four years before.
Any statistical jump like that should cause us to look closer and review. People whose country of origin was India, Brazil, Romania or the United Kingdom led the league table of new citizens but even taken together, only about one third of all new citizens came from these countries combined.
When asked, the Department of Justice did not know how many new Irish citizens held dual nationality. There’s nothing wrong with holding dual nationality per se, but surely it is something we should ask about.
Indians, for example, must renounce their Indian citizenship if they commit to another country, whereas the right to identify as British or Irish or both is enshrined in the Good Friday agreement. The department also does not know how many new citizens were still living in Ireland after five or ten years, despite making a declaration that they intended to do so.
The governments of which I was a member took meaningful steps to improve the citizenship process. There is a public ceremony in which new citizens are sworn in by a judge in the presence of a government minister and members of the defence forces. These ceremonies are among the most joyful and positive events I have attended.
The current government is considering proposals to require people applying for citizenship to show that they can look after themselves financially and are unlikely to become a burden on the state. They also propose to more clearly define the “good character” test.
Other reforms worth considering would include a language test. To fully integrate into Irish society, you need to have a working knowledge of the English language. A cúpla focal also helps.
Another would be a more general test on Irish history, culture, laws and values. It’s part of the process in the US and UK. I can’t see any downsides to it. There could also be an interview which would easily pick up any discrepancies in what is currently a paper-based process.
It’s right that Ireland offers a pathway to citizenship to people who have lived here for many years and contribute to our country. We should make sure those to whom we grant it have a connection to the country that is meaningful, want to stay and are people whom we want to stay. They should be the sugar in the milk.