To say there is a lot of Irish people in Western Australia (WA) would be an understatement.

“I was in court one day and the magistrate was Irish, I was defending so I was Irish, the prosecutor was a police officer who was Irish, and the poor bugger on the dock was Irish!”

It’s a case of the Irish being tried by the Irish and it is being relayed to us by Marty Kavanagh who owns his own legal firm, Kavanagh Family Lawyers, in Perth. Marty is also the honorary consul of Ireland, Western Australia. Marty, who is from Cork, came out to Australia for two years – that was 25 years ago.

“It’s very hard to leave a place like this that has eight months of sunshine, a wonderful climate and generally has a very high standard of living.”

The number of Irish in the state of WA (which is just one of the six Australian states) is significant.

“Estimates suggest there are approximately 25,000 Irish people currently living in Western Australia, an increase of almost 80% in five years,” says Marty, though he notes the results of this year’s census will give a clearer view of the numbers of Irish-born resident in WA.

Marty notes the very high-skill profile among the Irish in WA. Not only are there many civil, mechanical and construction engineers, there are also many doctors, nurses, teachers, police, and lawyers.

“There’s a huge amount of commercial or real estate people from Ireland here. If you go to CBRE or the big firms around Perth, an awful lot of their senior managers will be Irish.”

Marty says there are also “heaps of accountants” – in fact, there is an Chartered Accountants Ireland Australia Society with a branch in Perth.

Stephen Dawson, who was born and bred in Dublin before moving to Australia as a teenager with his family, is a Labor Party MP for the Mining and Pastoral region of WA (his electorate district is two million km2 in size). He says: “Over the past few years there wasn’t a town in Western Australia you could go to without bumping into someone Irish.”

The biggest issue for the Irish in Perth at the moment is the loss of jobs, which can lead to visa issues and complications, according to the Claddagh Association, which has been assisting Irish people in times of short-term crisis in Western Australia since 1997.

This loss of jobs is linked to the slowdown in the mining boom, something which is described by Marty Kavanagh as “the biggest boom that WA has ever seen or is every likely to see”. The boom is now over and Stephen Dawson says this has meant many Irish emigrants have been laid off and some have gone home.

The 457 visa for temporary skilled work is one of the most commonly held visas by the Irish in Australia. It also grants entry to the visa holder’s partner, spouse or girl/boyfriend. It’s an employer-related visa, so if the job goes, and emigrants haven’t been in Australia long enough to secure permanent residency, then they’re in trouble. Quite often the visa holder can’t rely on staying on their partner’s visa because their partner never needed to get one.

Marty Kavanagh says he has seen a “considerable rise” in the number of detentions of Irish people in Australia.

Stephen Dawson says some of the Irish who have been detained “are not convinced about the Irish economy improving”. He adds: “They decide to risk detention by overstaying their Australian visas. Having spent a year or two enjoying the Australian lifestyle, it would be a sobering-up experience to suddenly find yourself locked up.”

“The information systems held by the police and all the government authorities here are highly connected,” says Marty, “so your typical story is that some poor girl or fella is stopped on a random breath test or stopped in a driver’s licence check, the licence goes into the computer and it pops up on immigration and it says ‘unlawful’. He or she then goes directly to the detention centre – there and then.”

Marty says discretion is exercised if emigrants haven’t overstayed their visa by too long and will be given a bridging visa, but: “In an awful lot of cases, the people being stopped now have not overstayed by four weeks or four months, they’re four years or three years overdue. So then you end up at a detention centre in Perth airport – if you’re lucky because that’s nearby and your friends can come and see you.”

In the year ending June 2015, just over 400 Irish citizens were “returned or removed” from Australia for breaching the conditions of their visa.

Liz O’Hagan from The Claddagh Association says Irish people who are detained tend to be aged 34 or younger, are single and are mostly male.

Liz says the main issues for those who contact her organisation involve their release from detention. This can be delayed as a result of criminal cases our out-of-date or lost passports.

“There is a very strong public acceptance that the law is the law over here,” says Marty Kavanagh. “I don’t want to generalise but there’s a kind of a sense among the Irish of ‘ah sure it’ll be grand’. If you’re a day over your visa, it’s not grand.”

While it’s unfortunate these issues are met by some Irish emigrants in Australia, it is also recognised that the Irish community is making a huge contribution to the economy of this very rural, remote and sparsely populated Australian state.

“As an MP for rural and regional Western Australia, it gives me great pride every time I come across another Irish person making a contribution in the bush,” says Stephen Dawson.

“We as Irish people have been part of Australia’s history since the first fleet arrived and we’ve come a long way.”