Deputy Noel Grealish has raised what he considers concerns over the level of remittances sent abroad, using terms like ‘staggering’ and ‘astronomical’. He specifically referred to Nigeria. During Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Tuesday the Galway West TD said a “staggering” amount of money had been transferred over the last eight years with the largest amounts going to Lithuania (€843 million), France (€1 billion), Poland (€1.54 billion), UK (€2.7 billion) and Nigeria (€3.54 billion) .
‘Mr Grealish . . . said he could understand transfers (remittances) to other EU countries such as the UK because 100,000 British people were living in Ireland. But he said in reference to Nigeria that €3.54 billion going to one non-EU country is “astronomical” and he asked if the Revenue Commissioners or the Department of Finance had a method of tracking the source of this money to ensure it was not the proceeds of crime and fraud because more than €1 billion a year was being transferred.’
Given his recent comments in Oughterard referring to Africans as ‘spongers’, it is clear that the Deputy is in dog whistle territory. And on top of all that, the Deputy wasn’t even quoting from official data sources.
The Deputy was basing his numbers on a report from the World Bank/Knomad (the latter an international NGO). However, the data presented is neither official data nor officially sourced. They are estimates from a model based on a methodology developed 12 years ago. The World Bank is quite clear:
‘These are analytical estimates based on logical assumptions and derived from a global estimation of bilateral remittance flows worldwide. They are not actual officially reported data.’
While such models are useful, especially regarding information where there is little data, they must always be treated with caution. But if the World Bank report is not official data, is there any place we can go to find hard information on remittances? Yes, from Eurostat. Data on remittances is collected as part of the Balance of Payments framework. What does this tell us?
The World Bank model estimates remittances to Nigeria in 2018 to be €539 million. However, Eurostat’s data shows €16 million were remitted to Nigeria. That is a big difference – between a model-based estimate and official data actually collected by the CSO on behalf of Eurostat.
Indeed, most remittances are not sent outside the EU. 79 percent of remittances are sent to other EU countries. That is the third highest level of intra-EU transfers among EU countries.
If Deputy Grealish were concerned about ‘crime’ or ‘fraud’ or suspicious tax-avoidance activities he might have actually asked the Minister about one particular place that remittances were sent to. In 2018, €32 million was sent from Irish households to households in ‘offshore financial centres’. That would be an interesting question.
He could have asked the Minister for Finance about the difference between the World Bank report, which estimates remittances at three times more than the Eurostat data. This would have implications for the GDP. While technical, that, too, could be interesting.
But no, interesting questions is not what Deputy Grealish is about. He is about using whatever information he happens to have to victimise a racial minority. And if he doesn’t have the information he just makes it up.
Shouting over at Grealish in the Dail yesterday, Deputy Ruth Coppinger accused him of ‘disgraceful racism’. She was correct.
Notes on the Front 
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