Quote Originally Posted by Wheeze View Post
As usual Pat, those figures are misleading. The only country above us in the top 10 with a population more than London is Germany. For somewhere like Luxembourg with only 540K inhabitants, a small number of immigrants can put them at the top of that table.
Here is the graph in full. I'd say we are just below Germany as to the most immigrants absorbed and ahead of all the others in that top 10.
800px-Immigrants,_2014_(per_1_000_inhabitants)_YB16.jpg
It is "per head of population" that matters. Ireland (current population about 4.5m) is full of Poles, they are everywhere. The local shop in my parent's little village has a couple working there, most of the staff at my uncles nursing home are non-irish. Granted the absolute numbers would be low compared to the the UK but their visibility is much greater. Ireland has been exporting people to the UK, USA, Australia, etc for over a hundred years, and I would like to think those people have had a positive effect on the host countries. I suppose that makes the Irish more tolerant now the situation has reveresed. The UK has had a very different history.