Filipinos in Ireland consist largely of migrant workers in the health care sector, though others work in tourism and information technology.
From just 500 individuals in 1999, the first group of nurses arrived in April 2001 at the time six recruitments companies had been involved with the large influx of Filipino coming into Ireland they had grown to a population of 11,500 by 2007, a 2200% expansion in just eight years.
[2] In 2023, an estimated 6,000 Filipino nurses were employed in the Irish healthcare system, which at 7% of the workforce[3] formed the largest category of non-European Union workers in Ireland.
The government altered the policy in February 2004—largely with the intent of retaining Filipino nurses, whom it was feared would otherwise migrate to other countries, such as the United Kingdom or Australia, which allowed spouses to work.
[4][9] However, that same year, an amendment to the constitution limited the scope of jus soli, thus excluding the children of migrant workers from automatic citizenship; the League of Filipino Nurses took its first public political position in response to the amendment, calling it "discriminatory and racist" in an 8 June 2004 statement.