Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 27 Jan 2004

Vol. 578 No. 4

Private Members' Business.

Economic Plight of Irish Emigrants: Motion.

Mr. Rabbitte

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

— acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of Irish people were forced, through economic and cultural circumstances to emigrate to Britain to earn a living through manual work, particularly during the 1950s and 1960s;

— conscious that this group is believed to have remitted, between 1939 and 1969, the sum of £3.5 billion to this country in that period which played a crucial role in sustaining families and communities at a time of dire poverty;

— shocked at the appalling conditions in which many of these now elderly Irish citizens are forced to live, which were depicted so vividly in the "Prime Time" programme broadcast on 22 December last;

— acknowledging that while a number of Irish Governments attempted to address some of the issues concerning the plight of this generation of Irish workers, not enough was done and that there is no excuse for the failure to tackle these issues during the Celtic tiger period;

— believing that the failure of the Government to act in a time of relative economic plenty and especially the shocking decision to cut funding for DÍON by 5% in 2003 is a particular stain on its record;

— condemns the failure of the Government to implement the recommendations made by the Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants, published in August 2002;

— calls for the early implementation of the report's recommendations particularly the establishment of a new structure to co-ordinate the provision of services for Irish emigrants and communities abroad, the Agency for the Irish Abroad; and the establishment of a funding scheme for the provision of care and support services to elderly returning emigrants in supported housing accommodation.

I wish to share time with Deputies Michael D. Higgins and Howlin.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Rabbitte

I ask colleagues on all sides of the House, in a non-adversarial way, to support and endorse this Labour Party motion because our emigrant countrymen, mainly male, middle aged or older emigrants of the 1950s and 1960s, deserve no less from Dáil Éireann. There are no votes in this motion; there is no electoral dividend for the Labour Party but we owe this to our fellow countrymen or at least to those who have fallen on hard times in Britain and elsewhere. This country failed them when they were forced to emigrate and when we exported them without a decent level of formal education. We took their English pounds and accepted their American dollars because we desperately needed them at the time but we gave them back little or nothing.

Successive Governments regarded them as our vanished people and conveniently forgot them. In more recent times, there were efforts, for example through the establishment in 1984 of DÍON by my colleague Deputy Quinn, to make some restitution but not nearly enough. It is difficult to believe that while we wasted millions of taxpayers' money throughout the years of the Celtic tiger we failed to address the very real human needs of the people we shipped out in the 1950s, many of them ill-equipped for their new environment. It is even more unbelievable that recommendations to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in August 2002 by a Government appointed task force on emigrants remain on the shelf.

This is an important motion in that it gives the House an opportunity to debate the content of the "Prime Time" documentary transmitted before Christmas on the conditions in which many of our citizens, men who emigrated in the 1950s and 1960s to work on the building sites, now live in Britain. My colleague, Deputy Michael D. Higgins, will address the wider canvass in his contribution. This motion concerns a debt we owe as a people and a State, a national debt to those, our own, then young, men who, through the dark days of the 1950s and 1960s, were forced by dint of necessity to emigrate mainly to Britain. As a result of failed economic policy at home they could find no work, no living in the then Ireland but there was work in Britain. There these men laboured hard, regularly in appalling and dangerous conditions, often facing racial prejudice, to rebuild a war-damaged country and the necessary infrastructure of the post-war British welfare state. Through their hard-earned remittances home they put food on tables, clothed families and enabled those families achieve some modest standard of living in a poverty-ridden moribund economy. Emigrants' remittances, the money sent home to Ireland by these men, were also economically important, for example, in respect of the State's balance of payments figures.

It has been estimated that between 1949 and 1989, more than 800,000 people were forced to leave Ireland, approximately one-fifth of the current population of the State. Approximately half this outflow occurred during the 1950s. The nadir was reached in 1955 when 55,000 young people left our shores. That migration included many tens of thousands of these young men, as they then were, who went to work on construction sites abroad.

We have some accounts of how these men lived, none better than Donall MacAmhlaigh's Dialann Deoraí, an Irish language classic first published in 1964 and in 1970 translated into English as The Irish Navvy — the Diary of an Exile, by the poet and diplomat, Valentine Iremonger. The current publisher of the Iremonger translation in a marketing description of the book atmospherically captures its content: “Backbreaking, blister-making work, followed by pints of the black stuff in the Admiral Rodney, the Shamrock, the Cattle Market Tavern ... Workless and foodless days, the hardships of work camps, lonesome partings after trips home, periods of intense isolation and occasional bitterness were also part of the picture.”

We also have a film record, the work of the British documentarist, Philip Donnellan, in his 1965 film "The Irishmen: An Impression of Exile" made for, but never shown by the BBC, which as it happens was made in roughly the same period and portrays much of the same world as described by Donall MacAmhlaigh in his diary.

Young people in Ireland today probably have little awareness or understanding of what the life of the Irish in Britain was like then — the backbreaking labour, the danger and the overtime, the exploitation by their own, and the British ethnic prejudice, "No Irish need apply", hardly an improvement on the edict that faced an earlier generation on arriving in Canada, "Connaughtmen and horned cattle to the far platform!"

As Damian Harman described in his great study of 1950s migration, Rural Exodus, many if not most of these young men, some no more than youths, were ill-prepared for the world to which they were migrating. They had no desire to go but Ireland then was in the words of the historian Joe Lee, “A sluggish society clinging to the possessor principle.” Until the late 1950s our native Governments did not see employment or economic development as real priorities; they saw full employment as unattainable and emigration as a necessary safety valve, something to save them from inevitable social unrest. Indeed as recently as 1991 the then Tánaiste, the late Brian Lenihan commented: “This country is too small to support all her people.”

These men had to go. In many cases, they were grossly exploited by their employers — in many instances Irish contractors and subcontractors — under the system known as the "lump", a black economy system that still survives, including in Ireland, as anyone who knows the inner workings of the construction industry knows. The "lump" put many of them outside the social insurance system, now a serious problem in later life from the point of view of, for example, pension entitlement.

It has been said of this migration that these men disappeared in silence while domestically, their emigration was a silent haemorrhage, treated by denial. While some managed to return home many more did not. Many of them, including Donall MacAmhlaigh, settled in Britain and made good, fulfilling lives for themselves and their families and played no little role, including in Labour Party politics and the broader labour movement, in the building of modern Britain. However, many also did not or could not return home and did not make for themselves successful lives in Britain and are now incapable of work or beyond working age, living lonely lives in poverty and ill-health, homelessness and squalor, ageing survivors of a way of life which thankfully has changed in the main for the better, although remnants of it remain.

The documentary made by "Prime Time" most graphically brought home to everyone who saw it the conditions in which these men live, the homelessness, problems of poor accommodation, the health problems, the scourges of alcoholism, depression and suicide and the work of the British social services and Irish voluntary social groups assisting them. The establishment in 1984 by my colleague, Deputy Quinn, of the State committee, DÍON, as a grant-giving agency aiding and assisting voluntary care agencies meant that the State recognised the debt owed to these men and the duty we owe them as Irish citizens. It is perhaps some measure of the scale of the problem that in 2002 these DÍON-assisted agencies throughout Britain dealt with 30,000 people.

There is perhaps some tendency to think of this problem as essentially a London one. It is true that the scale of the problem is significant in London but that is by way of the nature of things. It is not confined to London. One indication of this was the remark made by Ellen Stagg who, with her husband Michael in 1993, established the Coventry Mayo Association. Speaking at a fund-raising event in Mayo last April she said:

The youngsters are in their fifties. Many of the older people, in their seventies, are lonely and isolated, particularly from the Irish community and its culture. Some of them need the help and support of the people of Ireland and of the younger people in Coventry.

This is not exclusively a problem of rural migrants either since many of those involved in the migration came from Dublin.

The recognition given through DÍON has been insufficient, most woefully so during the years of the economic boom — the so-called Celtic tiger years. To add insult to injury, last year the allocation was cut to €2.5 million compared to €2.7 million in 2002. The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Roche, speaking in London last July told his audience this cut "represents a continuing and high level of support for the Irish voluntary sector in Britain". The Government also argued that the fall was offset by exchange rate gains, while the Taoiseach's very own "Mary from Dungloe", the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Coughlan, had the gall to tell a London gathering in July, at the launch of the Irish Pensioners Network of Great Britain, "We in Ireland are in your debt because all of you contributed so much to the Irish economy when times were hard." How has this Government shown its indebtedness? By nothing other than the binning of the report and recommendations of the task force of experts which it established to advise on an appropriate course of action for Government policy regarding emigrants.

On the 5 February last in an Adjournment debate, the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Michael Ahern, described the report as "a milestone in the process of developing a coherent long-term approach to our emigrants and their needs". That is a sure indication that the Government had not the slightest intention of acting on the recommendations, especially the financial ones. These were for a significant increase in funding for immigrant services world-wide, representing some €18 million for 2003, increasing to €34 million in 2005, with €8 million of this for welfare services in Britain in 2003, rising to €12 million in 2005. This may be a significant increase but it is paltry in the context of the sums wastefully spent by the Government.

Yesterday I received an invitation to the launch by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, of his shiny new electronic voting and counting system at a cost of €36 million. There was no electronic voting when we drove these men out and the shiny new equipment will not count them now.

This year's Estimate of €4 million is no more than half what the task force recommended as an appropriate cash allocation for Britain for last year. Another of the report's recommendations, namely, the transfer of responsibility for emigrant policy to the Department of Foreign Affairs, including the transfer of DÍON from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, simply became the occasion for a cynical exercise in pass-the-parcel. Not for either of these fine upstanding, thrusting, modern Departments and their Ministers anything as un-modern and unfashionable as caring for old men in Camden Town. The policy of this Government amounts in effect to paying lip service to our debt, à la Deputy Coughlan, wishing that it would go away or, even worse, “Leave it to the Brits”.

The late Valentine Iremonger, an officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs, could devote his considerable literary talent to giving us a fine translation of Donall MacAmhlaigh's Dialann Deoraí. I am both surprised and disappointed that the present Minister for Foreign Affairs can find neither the time nor commitment to give real effect to the recommendations of the task force, which he received in August 2002. It shows how far the third generation of Fianna Fáil has grown away from its roots.

There is another aspect to Donall MacAmhlaigh's book, an important theme relating to a different sphere of public policy, another aspect of the rural exodus. This is his lament for the linguistic loss represented by much of this cruel emigration. Many of the men came from Gaeltacht areas and were native speakers. MacAmhlaigh observed:

If any of them get married over here . . . it is in English their family will be reared, even if they themselves speak the old tongue, as a lot of the Gaeltacht people here do. So all this Irish that could be handed on to another generation is going to waste. Seeing that this is so, it's a miserable Government that won't do their best to keep these people at home.

This miserable Government cannot even get its act together on the question of official status for the Irish language as a language of the European Union. This miserable Government refuses to get its act together in respect of the stark tragedy that is the situation in which many of our elderly citizens in Britain, men who through their remittances in the 1950s and 1960s kept families and communities at home going, tragically now find themselves. This miserable Government has a duty to assist those in London and other British cities who do excellent work on shoestring budgets with the "vanished people" that some in the modern Ireland would prefer to forget.

The poet and patriot Joseph Campbell in 1913 wrote the poem The Emigrant, the final verse of which is as follows:

Five hours will see me stowed aboard,

The gang-plank up, the ship unmoored.

Christ grant no tempest shakes the sea,

Farewell to barn and stack and tree.

I commend this motion to the House.

Mr. M. Higgins

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words on this important topic.

I am limited by time in the references I can make to the research which has been carried out. The topic has been researched to death but what has been needed is response to and action on the recommendations which have been made. Most recently, the task force on policy regarding emigrants reported and, as Deputy Rabbitte stated, its recommendations should be implemented. However, there have been several other studies. I recall attending some of them as I began carrying out research in this area in another life in 1969.

I remember attending presentations of research from the Irish in Britain research forum in 1988 when the cause and nature of the problem was laid out. It is important to realise we are referring to Irish women as well as men. The Irish women in the modern period are divided into two clear groups, namely, those who went into nursing and those who today occupy a disproportionate number of jobs in the service sector in cities like London.

I congratulate the makers of the recent "Prime Time" programme of December 22 last and all those voluntary agencies and individuals who have worked over the years with the Irish in Britain, particularly those who have found themselves on the margins of society.

The report of the task force to which I have made reference was published in August 2002 and made some specific recommendations. The Labour Party motion makes reference to the miserable cut in 2003 to the funding for DÍON in Britain. Having attended some of the meetings in Brent, Haringey and Islington, I can see the limits of DÍON's access to the Irish, some of whom are in the worst conditions.

Perhaps we have so immiserated ourselves at home that we are now incapable of considering a problem which was in front of our faces in London at the end of the 1980s and earlier. We have spoken with such lack of precision about the problem, even though the evidence is there. I will refer later to the number of people who worked on the buildings on the "lump". They met at 6 a.m. in Camden Town and were picked up to be driven to sites. There is a significant difference in the terrible conditions they endured, which were recorded in books such as Ultan Cowley's, The Men Who Built Britain, and earlier works by novelists such as Patrick McGill.

Even though there were no facilities for food, the work was long and people were pushed into pubs, the semblance of a rough social organisation was kept together. As the economy of Britain changed and that form of road building no longer predominated, the workers found themselves in urban settings being recruited for projects in twos and threes. They grew old carrying the burden of injuries received without social insurance and health protection.

All the analysis is inclined to forget the importance of life cycles in the structure of the migratory experience. A total of 59,000 people were exported from Ireland in 1957, only a year before the first programme for economic expansion. The Central Bank was sending messages to the Government that the economy could not continue as it was and T. K. Whitaker was shuttling between the Department of the Finance and the Central Bank every day before the new programme was introduced.

In the decade that surrounded that programme, the number of emigrants never fell below 30,000 and many were female. During an earlier post-Famine migration between 1881 and 1891, women outnumbered men. One of the reasons was the railways. British Rail carried people and offered them accommodation and a job. My sisters emigrated to Manchester in this fashion in the 1950s. The advantage was one had a place to stay.

As their life cycle evolved, the people who were shown in the "Prime Time" programme grew older and were no longer able to work as they did previously. This has been highlighted in study after study. I read a study published last year about London, which highlighted Irish emigrants resided primarily in unfurnished, private rental accommodation. They were exploited in appalling conditions by many of their own — Irish landlords — in the same way the badge of property was put on the fields following the Famine, as those who stayed at home put the stamp of ownership on the fields. They could forget those who had left but they took their dollars to build churches and to pay shop bills and rack rents and so forth. Irish people exploited Irish people in the same way.

I recall a powerful image from 1968. I saw a prominent Irish builder in Britain calling into the Conservative Club in his Rolls Royce on the way to Old Trafford, not unlike today, while the people who were his pawns queued to get into the ground. Such people have always existed but we have come to a point at which we recite a regular patter abroad that Ireland is the second richest country in Europe and the fourth richest in the world and it has the fastest economic growth rate and falling unemployment. However, for good measure, Ireland has the most costly housing in Europe but no reference is made to that, or to the absence of social protection similar to that provided in the Scandinavian or other European models.

An Ireland has been created to which these emigrants could not dream of returning. We have been so miserable as not even to provide for their return on holiday. It is as if we have reinvented ourselves and have amnesia about the 1950s.

We never speak about the comprehensive anti-Irish racism that prevails in Britain. It abated in 1894 but those of us who have examined the literature of the time can recall the ape-like post-Darwin caricatures contained in it. These drawings were not jocular or something to laugh at as they were deeply and offensively racist. This tradition has been kept alive by the London Evening Standard. Why have successive Governments not pressed for the recognition of the Irish in Britain as an ethnic group?

Most importantly, sufficient research has not been conducted on the sums emigrants deposited in accounts, as perhaps they pathetically sought to avoid accountability in Britain and elsewhere. These sums lie in dormant accounts. It does not take rocket science to assess how much lies in such accounts and we should have first call on it to address emigrant issues. I recall the images of people on "Prime Time". The bias that existed is interesting. Irish writers have been better than Irish social scientists at recording migration. I taught the first course on the sociology of migration on this island in the early 1970s. Since then, courses have been introduced in colleges in Maynooth, Cork, Belfast and elsewhere. However, it is as if we did not want to admit it had happened.

I read letters written by people who had emigrated to the US and Australia. We stopped writing to the people in Australia because there was no money in the letters and, as Liam O'Flaherty's powerful short story, The Letter, shows, the first thing the man checks is the money in the envelope and says there is the price of a horse in that. Those who emigrated in the 1950s began writing letters home but then, because of the circumstances in which they found themselves, they stopped writing. The time then came when they did not travel home for Christmas any more and the connection was broken. That from which they came had changed utterly and there were no networks of connection. They got lost in London and yet, as Deputy Rabbitte said, they sent money home and it built up in Irish accounts. It is listed every year.

We have a long history of several migrations. One of the last waves was between 1987 and 1989. It is sometimes assumed correctly, for example, that those emigrants were better educated than those involved in the great haemorrhage of the late 1950s. However, buried in these statistics is the fact many young people from Dublin and other cities who left in the 1980s did so because they felt they could not measure up through some deficiency or other and, as the Action Group for Irish Youth and others point out, they found themselves in hostels.

Interestingly, as part of the new amnesia and the construction of a suitable mentality for a rich country that does not worry about how the riches are distributed, we are too inclined to invent new attitudes to match, thus there is a subterranean, poisonous flow of anti-immigrant feeling, which, no doubt, will surface during the coming elections. A total of 57,651 harvesters arrived in England in 1841. William Cobbett described them as "hundreds of squalid creatures tramping into London without shoes, stockings or shirts, with nothing on the head worthy of the name of hat and with rags hardly sufficient to hide the nakedness of their bodies". It is part of the intellectual trappings of a modern country advertising itself as rich that it would produce attitudes to match towards people who travel to these shores, whom we should welcome.

Following four year's work in this area, I found that one feature that characterised Irish migration in the modern period, above all else, was its circulatory character, which had been neglected. Most of the images are of people leaving for America or Australia when it was a form of death. However, throughout the late 1950s people were coming and going all the time, thereby changing the values of people at home and so forth. This is supported in all the research conducted in the modern period from the Limerick rural survey through John Jackson and others. However, what I remember noticing is that this circulating group had valuable, humane values of its own in a kind of line from the seasonal migrants of pre-Famine days.

In 1969 I met the sugar workers in Nissen huts in Telford. I heard a man speaking to his son in Irish about a deal done so that there would be a supply of labour for the British Sugar Corporation. It is when they are no longer able to circulate that they find they cannot return home because of age, a mixture of personal difficulties or absence of clothes. A returning migrant needs to come home, not only with a shirt but with the minimum to be able to present himself or herself with dignity. We have put incredible barriers between ourselves and that part of our history and this part of our own people.

I find it hollow to hear people speak about a diaspora, as if we were something shaken from a pepper canister and that there was nothing involuntary in it. People were deported from this country in the 17th century and were driven from the so-called republic of the 1940s and 1950s. They were driven from homes to line up in Galway station with cardboard suitcases for bád na himirce.

We badly injured ourselves in developing a kind of blindness and being unable to respond to situations such as this. It is curious that a country of landless people always needed its landlords. Very few people speak about the agricultural labourers, most of whom were wiped out in the Famine and in the emigration that immediately followed it. Not everyone died in the Famine. Just before the land Acts of the end of the 19th century the graziers, who had both an Irish flag and a crucifix overhead them, had more land than the landlords had ever had. It is part of the contemporary definition of ourselves in Ireland of the present time that we still need landlords. In 1934, peasants would stand at the Galway races and say to the greatest gombeen of them all, Máirtín Mór McDonagh, "Lead him in yourself, Mr. Martin." In the same way, there are people forelocking the extremely rich people who have made fortunes out of speculation and State assets and who can barely stay here for 90 days. The suggestion is that the great people, the landlords and super-rich, will somehow, in an attack of philanthropy, relieve us from our obligations to the people who came from every village in Ireland and who built Britain.

All the different studies have been done. We know that the study for London is different from the national study. We know how many have an Irish father or mother, how many are second generation Irish, where they are concentrated, who is in Arlington House and who is in all of the different hostels. We also know, in the most prosperous period in Irish history, that no one is lifting a finger to give back something to those who gave to us, when people wore shoes they got in parcels and depended on letters from Britain.

Let us not distort the figures. The 1998 to 1990 figures are very important. The emigrants of those years were different from those of the 1950s. In the 1950s unskilled men went to work on building sites and women went to work in nursing and service occupations. Buried within the statistics for the 1980s and 1990s are a far more vulnerable group. These are the young males not as physically strong as those of the 1950s and females who were not entering the professions, as one would expect, but who were going into the lowest paid, most vulnerable and at-risk service occupations.

I am delighted to be able to support this motion. When I attended a research conference as late as April 1988 a woman spoke of having been given a voucher for £39 to go home to Ireland. Is it not interesting that we have so progressed morally that we are now offering people vouchers to go back to their homes, wherever they may be? It is time we tried to lift the burden of shame that lies on every Government that did so little for the Irish in Britain, and particularly those at risk.

Mr. Howlin

It is always challenging to be third in a sequence of speakers following Deputies Rabbitte and Higgins. It is particularly daunting when the subject is one in which both are so well versed, particularly Deputy Higgins who is an eminent sociologist. The issues which have been so well addressed in this debate involve a compelling moral argument for all of us, across party lines. This issue is to our collective shame.

Like many of my colleagues who will speak tomorrow, I will present a local focus. I come from the maritime county of Wexford. The picture of the port of Rosslare could be replicated in almost every county in Ireland. Even in my own lifetime I remember the bleakness of visiting the port of Rosslare when people from all over the country would arrive, tanking themselves up for the journey across the Irish Sea to return to their place of work, having been home for the visit. For decades that journey took place, weekend after weekend. We all remember the summer and Christmas visits.

Entire communities, villages, towns and districts survived on the remittances received from those we dispatched abroad. Their plight today is one that shames us in the wonderful light in which we present ourselves at the cutting edge of modern Europe. We are wealthy, able and self-confident but, as Deputy Higgins has so ably said, anxious to blank out a chapter of our own history and to forget those upon whose endeavour, work, sweat, commitment and very life's blood our prosperity was built.

As a local public representative, I visited the various county associations in Britain. As mayor of Wexford I have had the privilege of visiting county associations in every major conurbation in the United Kingdom. The members of those associations were always anxious to associate themselves with their native place and would often tell me that although we had often forgotten them, they had never forgotten us. We remember people coming home for Christmas, dressed to the nines and having the few bob to spend to give the pretence of prosperity, knowing that they had exhausted their entire savings for months on end to save face and to present a good image to those who were left at home.

In the face of that reality, which was painted so vividly and morally compellingly in the RTE programme, the Government amendment is shameful. It acknowledges that "some of those who left were inadequately prepared for the challenges of living abroad and require special assistance and support". It is their failure because they were inadequately prepared for the challenges of living abroad. This is a denial of the failure of Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s, from which they were expelled, and of the education systems that did not prepare them to have any life chances in a new environment. Those who made it were the exceptions rather than those who endured to sustain those at home. We can and must do better.

It was said emigration was a safety valve. The Establishment at the time was not concerned at the haemorrhaging of the youth and best people of Ireland. It was more concerned that those who went abroad and were radicalised and understood the deficiencies of the sort of system that was bedding down in this country might come home and radicalise us.

This issue goes beyond party politics and I am proud to be associated with it. I commend it to the House and hope the testimony of so many people in this debate and those reaching into this House from around the globe will impact on the Government.

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Cowen)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"— recognises the great contribution that many Irish emigrants have made over the years to the development of their adopted countries as well as to Ireland;

— acknowledges, however, that some of those who left were inadequately prepared for the challenges of living abroad and require special assistance and support;

— commends the decision of the Government to establish the task force on policy regarding emigration and welcomes the publication of the task force report in August 2002;

— recognises that the task force report represents a template for future action in this area and that the implementation of its wide-ranging recommendations will have to be phased over a number of years;

— acknowledges the efforts made by the Government so far to implement the recommendations of the task force report;

— welcomes the Government's priorities in targeting resources on the most needy among our emigrants, including the elderly, those who are at greatest risk of marginalisation and social exclusion as well as returning emigrants, and on improving the capacity of voluntary organisations to provide more effective services for emigrants;

— welcomes the changes in pension eligibility introduced by the Government and the consequent increase in pension entitlements for emigrants abroad which this year is expected to amount to €80 million;

— welcomes the allocation of €4.063 million this year in the Vote for the Department of Foreign Affairs for emigrant services; and

— commends the Government for its commitment to address the needs of our emigrants abroad."

I wish to share my time with Deputies O'Connor and Mulcahy.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Cowen

I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue which relates to a report we have had for a couple of years. The motion was probably motivated by the recent "Prime Time" programme which highlighted some of the issues for the most vulnerable emigrants who unfortunately require further assistance and should, and I hope will, obtain such assistance in due course.

None of us has to divide on the haemorrhaging of emigration since the time of the Famine. Joe Lee's book which has been mentioned covers the period from 1912 to 1984 and encapsulates much of our national life. Successive Governments since the birth of the State had to contend — not, they would claim, totally successfully — with difficulties and a far more hostile political and economic environment.

While I do not question the sincerity of some of the emotive language used and the images portrayed in the speeches made, this problem is not one of which I am unaware. Every family has had an emigrant experience. I am the son of emigrant who went to the United States as a 15 year old in 1948. On both sides of my family people have worked "on the lump" in England, Canada and the United States. In case I have to listen to the charge by the Labour Party leader that I have grown away from my roots, I am personally aware of the experience of Irish emigrants abroad for that generation, including those who have come back and those who unfortunately have not. The speakers so far have acknowledged that no Government has been enlightened or responded to the extent we would like to have seen up to now or for the future. We must take on board that history and experience. As I contribute to this debate, it is not from a position of privilege or lack of awareness.

As a result of the social partners discussing the PPF, a very good proposal was made for the establishment of a task force on emigrants. There is a very stereotypical view of the emigrant experience. While this is stereotypical, it is not inaccurate in its totality. We have knowledge of the hardships borne by people who because of economic necessity involuntarily left this country for other parts of the world to find their fortune or simply to earn a living elsewhere, many of whom have assimilated well into those societies.

In our understanding of that experience we have never seen the positives of emigration to the extent we could have. In other words, while very many went involuntarily, they adapted, made their lives, reared families, assimilated, contributed and in later generations continue to contribute to the building of those countries while keeping a great sense of Irishness. They have highlighted and upheld the Irish language and culture in more difficult circumstances than we had at home. I acknowledge all of this and do not argue with the contributions so far which have encapsulated that experience.

Emigration is a deeply emotive subject, touching as it does, at one time or another, every family in the country. Ireland occupies a remarkable place in world emigration terms in that in recent centuries very large numbers of our people have emigrated relative to our overall population. It is estimated that, of the 3 million or so Irish citizens abroad, almost 1.2 million were born in Ireland, the equivalent of approximately 30% of the present population. However, we must look at the subject of emigration in its proper context. In statistical terms, the number emigrating from Ireland has declined very substantially in recent years. In the past 50 years there were two periods of substantial emigration, in the 1950s and the 1980s, due mainly to difficult economic and social conditions in Ireland. In the 1950s the average outflow was 40,000 per year and in the late 1980s the figure was 27,000.

As a result of increasing levels of prosperity in more recent times, those days are behind us. I would love to see a follow-up book from Joe Lee covering the period since 1984. Even with the prescience he showed in his book and the wide knowledge and erudition displayed, he could not have contemplated the level of growth, improvement and transformation we have seen since. That is not to forget the institutional memory of inadequacies of the past. However, we should recognise that thankfully we are in different circumstances now as a result of increasing levels of prosperity.

While there are still some 20,000 people emigrating every year, many of these are young people who are taking a year off to see the world before they return to Ireland to settle down. Among those some still go as ill prepared and ill equipped as those who went in the 1950s. There is now net inward migration as a result of the large numbers coming here from abroad in recent years, many of them returning emigrants.

We should also look behind the statistics and examine the experience of those who have emigrated. Many have created very good lives for themselves and their children and have integrated well into their adopted countries. They have made significant contributions to those countries as well as promoting a positive image of Ireland abroad. We can be proud of their achievements. The task force acknowledged this in its report. It argued that emigration should be seen in a more positive light, as part of the process of constructive engagement which has characterised Ireland's interaction with other countries for centuries. As we take up the responsibility for those who have difficulties and problems, the task force has quite properly put that perspective into the mix.

We should view the emigrant experience in this wider context and not automatically see it through a prism of failure, as some commentators on occasion choose to do. Many of our emigrants have maintained the strongest links with Ireland. This has benefited the country greatly, most importantly in the past through remittances sent home. However, Irish emigrants and, in particular, their descendants have also over the years made a distinctive contribution to the development of Irish economic interests. The establishment of the Ireland America Economic Advisory Board is a particularly good example of this. More recently, the acquisition of valuable skills by emigrants who subsequently returned home to live and work has greatly benefited the modernisation of our economy and country.

I recognise that the experience of emigration has not been a success for everyone. We cannot but be moved by the plight of those people who gave up so much for their families at home and for their country and who now suffer health and other problems. Even today, some of our emigrants are vulnerable people who are at risk of exclusion and marginalisation and who are unable to manage abroad without special support. The reference in my amendment to the motion is not patronising. Many involved in emigrant services confirm that there is a need to build up pre-departure services to equip people, ensure that they understand that which faces them and that they are as prepared as possible for that experience.

We should not forget also that the primary responsibility for the provision of the proper care and protection for vulnerable people in any society rests with the statutory authorities in those countries. We need to forge a partnership approach, which harnesses the resources and commitment of the Government with those of host countries and of the voluntary agencies, to provide the best possible support for those of our emigrants who require it.

Successive Governments have for many years provided financial assistance to voluntary Irish agencies in Britain, the United States and Australia which have been offering welfare services for vulnerable people. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the many Irish people and others abroad who have established and maintained these agencies and who have done so much to help the less fortunate of their fellow citizens. They have worked tirelessly and selflessly and deserve our heartfelt thanks and appreciation.

During the second wave of emigration in the 1980s, the then Minister for Labour, Deputy Quinn, established the DÍON fund for the provision of assistance to voluntary Irish agencies in Britain. A total of over €18 million has been disbursed from that fund since it was established. Since the early 1990s, assistance has been provided by my Department to voluntary agencies in the United States. Almost €4 million has been allocated to services for Irish emigrants in the US since then.

I wish to emphasise at this stage that the particular problems of elderly and isolated Irish emigrants in Britain have received special consideration and will be a high priority for us. The DÍON committee takes particular account of this in the allocation of grants to voluntary Irish organisations in Britain which cater to the needs of elderly members of the Irish community. Over half the DÍON fund, approximately €1.3 million, went to vulnerable groups last year, €873,000 went on projects for the elderly, €119,000 on repatriation projects and €332,000 on Traveller projects.

In the 1980s we worked closely with our friends in the US Congress, notably Congressmen Morrisson and Donnelly, who were spearheading efforts to help the undocumented Irish in the US. Those efforts brought substantial benefits but did not entirely solve the problem and there continues to be an unknown number of undocumented Irish in the US. I welcome the recent initiative announced by President Bush to try and regularise the situation of the undocumented in the United States by the introduction of a new temporary work permit scheme. This is not a total solution but it is the first inkling of improvements in the situation in America, post-11 September. The President's proposals will have to be approved by the Congress and it is too early to say what amendments may be made in the course of their passage through Congress. Nevertheless, I believe that this initiative represents an important first step in addressing the situation of undocumented foreign workers in a pragmatic and compassionate way.

I do not claim that everything that has been done represents a sufficient response. On the contrary, it was precisely because the Government recognised that more should be done that it agreed, after consultation with the social partners, to establish the task force on policy towards emigrants. The background to this was the Harvey report, commissioned by the Irish Episcopal Commission for Emigrants and the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas in 1999. That report assessed the current pattern of Irish emigration, reviewed the policy responses and services provided by the Government, the Catholic Church and other voluntary agencies and set out the main policy challenges that would arise over the ten-year period ahead. It concluded that there was a need for a Government commitment to a partnership approach to the subject of emigration and the development of a coherent and effective policy, funding and service infrastructure and recommended the establishment of the task force to which I refer. As a result of discussions leading to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, it was agreed that the task force should be established.

The principal purpose of the task force was to advise on the development of a coherent long-term policy approach to meeting the needs of our emigrants. I instructed that the task force be established and it held its first meeting in December 2001. It met on nine occasions and invited a number of specialists to make presentations to it. It also sought and received a wide range of submissions from members of the public and interested organisations at home and abroad. Members of the task force travelled to Britain, the United States and Australia and met a wide range of individuals and groups, as well as public representatives with an interest in Irish affairs. The task force also commissioned a research study to review existing statistical data and literature on Irish emigration in the countries that are or have been the main destinations for Irish emigrants. This study provided much useful information which assisted the task force in forming its conclusions and recommendations.

I asked the task force to look at all aspects of emigration, including pre-departure services for emigrants before they go abroad, services for emigrants after they leave the country and services to returning emigrants who wished to come back to Ireland. I also asked it to pay particular attention to the needs of young and disadvantaged emigrants, who are at greatest risk of social exclusion and marginalisation when they go abroad, and to the needs of returning emigrants, especially the vulnerable and the elderly. I stressed that what I wanted was a set of pragmatic and practical proposals that would enable concrete improvements to be made over time.

I did not set any limits on the ambition of the task force. I gave it a completely free hand to make whatever recommendations it considered appropriate. The task force produced an excellent report and I want to commend individuals who served on it, in particular, the chairman, Mr. Paddy O'Hanlon, for the extraordinarily high level of their contributions and for the speed and efficiency with which they completed their work.

The report sets the phenomenon of emigration in a modern and forward-looking context. It recognises the achievements of our emigrants and acknowledges their needs and provides a template for the future that will guide us in trying to meet the needs of the Irish abroad. I welcomed the report when it was published in late 2002. This was after the Estimates had been agreed for 2003 and, therefore, it could not be taken into account at that stage. I also made clear that the report contained many wide-ranging and far-reaching proposals and that their implementation would have to be phased over a period of years. I did not believe then, and this remains my view, that it would be possible to implement all of the recommendations at once, even if the level of resources advocated could be provided.

On receiving the task force report, I established an interdepartmental working group to examine its recommendations and report back to me. I received the working group's report late last year. The task force made 71 recommendations, some of which overlap somewhat and fall within the remit of a number of Departments. I have asked all relevant Departments to examine those recommendations to see what progress may already have been made in advancing them and what further measures might be taken in the short to medium term to do so. Overall, I estimate that action is underway on over 50 of the 71 recommendations.

My Department assumed responsibility for the DÍON fund from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment last year in order to give effect to one of the task force's recommendations, namely, that funding for emigrant services abroad should be brought together under the Department of Foreign Affairs. We announced last September that we had secured an additional €1 million in the Vote for the Department of Foreign Affairs for services to emigrants in 2004. This brings the overall expenditure on such services this year to just over €4 million, an increase of one third on 2003. I hope to be able to find some additional funds through savings in my Department's Vote later in the year. That will enable me to increase this amount even further.

I intend to allocate the bulk of the additional €1 million to the DÍON fund. There is no doubt that Britain is the country with the largest concentration of vulnerable Irish emigrants. Accordingly, I am pleased to announce that a total of €3.57 million will be allocated to the DÍON fund this year. That represents an increase of 30% over the total expended in 2003. It is a significant increase but I am determined we can and will do better as quickly as possible.

I have also asked that the DÍON committee give priority, in allocating its grants this year, to areas highlighted by the task force. I have in mind in particular support for the elderly. I also want to ensure that voluntary Irish agencies are in a position to increase their own capacity to access funding from other sources as well as to improve the effectiveness of their services. That immediate priority was identified by the Federation of Irish Societies, representatives of which I met. I allocated an additional €150,000, from savings to the federation in Britain to enable it to launch a major five-year capacity-building project. This is crucial if the federation and its affiliated bodies are to secure greater access to statutory and voluntary sources of funds in Britain. This represents the beginning of a process.

These issues should also be addressed in the wider east-west context between Britain and Ireland. Ministers who take part in discussions with their British counterparts under this umbrella are and should be aware of this dimension. The same applies to ministerial contacts with other countries where there are large Irish populations.

It is not the case that funding for emigrant services in Britain was cut by 5% last year. In fact, the total amount allocated for 2003 was €2.748 million, which represented a slight increase on the previous year. Funding for emigrant services in Britain, primarily through the DÍON fund, will have increased from €592,000 in 1999 to €3.57 million in 2004. This is close to an overall increase of €3 million during that short period. By any standards, however critical, this is a significant achievement. These figures contrast with DÍON funding by the rainbow Government. The total amount for the three years, 1995, 1996 and 1997, came to just over €2 million. This year's allocation alone is double the amount allocated during the three years of the rainbow Government.

In the case of the United States, I propose to allocate a total of €400,000 in 2004, representing an increase of 33% on last year. I also propose to increase the funding to Australia, which is admittedly on a low base, to €48,000, an increase of 25% on 2003. As in the case of the DÍON fund, I am proposing that, as the circumstances of the emigrant community in each of the countries dictate, a proportion of these increases should be reserved for projects that would give effect to priorities identified by the task force. These include capacity building, assistance for elderly and returning emigrants and projects to promote more effective networking and information sharing between the voluntary agencies abroad.

I am also determined to help the voluntary agencies in Ireland that provide assistance to intending and returning emigrants to improve the services they offer. To this end, I propose to provide a grant to ÉAN, the umbrella body for Irish voluntary agencies providing services to emigrants, to assist it to provide more effective support to its members. This will help to increase the effectiveness of these agencies and will promote greater communication and co-ordination between voluntary agencies at home and abroad.

I have set out in detail the resources being provided by my Department for services to emigrants this year. However, it would be misleading to conclude that this is the extent of the Government's support for the Irish abroad. Other Departments are also providing valuable assistance, particularly in the provision of pre-emigrant information and advice, and assistance to returning emigrants. The Department of Social and Family Affairs is this year providing €427,000 for the co-ordination and delivery of pre-departure services and services for returning emigrants. It works closely with the Federation of Irish Societies in Britain and the Coalition of Irish Emigrant Centres in the USA providing support and information to both groups.

Up to 2000, people who had paid social insurance contributions prior to 1953 could not use these for calculating entitlement to a contributory pension. However, in 2000, the Government introduced a half rate contributory pension for people with pre-1953 contributions who otherwise might not qualify. Roughly 60% of those who qualify under this scheme are people living abroad, mostly in the UK, who worked in Ireland prior to 1953 and, therefore, made the necessary qualifying contributions. This means that of the estimated expenditure this year of €132.7 million under the pension scheme, approximately €80 million will go to Irish people living abroad, the majority of whom live in Britain. This means a great deal to the many thousands of elderly Irish people living in Britain who are benefiting from the change made in 2000. It is a significant improvement for them.

Another area where work is being done to improve the situation for emigrants relates to pre-departure services. There can be some misconceptions about the nature and purpose of pre-departure services. They are not designed to encourage emigration but to equip people with the skills they need to cope with the challenges of living abroad. I recall, as Minister for Labour in the early 1990s, setting up an innovative FÁS scheme designed to identify job opportunities for those who intended to work abroad commensurate to their skills. At the time I was accused of promoting emigration, being defeatist and of being prepared to let people leave rather than provide jobs at home. There was not sufficient economic activity in the country to do that. However, we were also prepared to let these people go without being prepared to acknowledge that something could be done for them when they were leaving. The issue was a political hot potato for me as Minister for Labour and for Members on the Opposition benches.

I was seeking to establish a FÁS scheme whereby there would be placement officers on the Continent and in Britain to ensure that emigrants with skills could get jobs commensurate with those skills.

Mr. Rabbitte

In fairness, there is a long history to that. It was Mr. de Valera who started it. He believed it would be seen as encouraging emigration if he had preparation committees in place at the time.

Mr. Cowen

Plenty of people of this political generation from all sides of the House, who operate in a more benign economic and political environment, throw brickbats at the founding fathers of this State. In fairness to Professor Lee, he gives some credence to context. While one can claim that they could and should have done better, they operated in a far more hostile environment with fewer resources and less capacity than is the case now. It is a cheap shot to compare what we are achieving now with what was done in the 1940s. If we were half as good as they were——

Mr. Rabbitte

I am merely agreeing with the Minister's point. He is contextualising to the 1980s and I am saying the same attitude prevailed in the 1940s and 1950s.

Mr. Cowen

Some Members of the House who are contributing to this debate are representatives of parties that had a great deal to say on why I should not have established that scheme. A pragmatic approach was being taken on the basis of 27,000 emigrants per year from this country. There were Members in this House who, only a decade ago, refused to acknowledge the fact that there was emigration from this country. The attitude was that we should wipe our hands of them because it was better to do nothing than do something for them when they were going away. It is a fair point. The scheme was unique in that it was the first in the EU to have job placement officials from one EU country operating in another EU country.

The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has provided a total of €100,000 in grant-in-aid to the Safe Home organisation over the past two years. This funding goes towards the general administrative and running costs involved in carrying out Safe Home's role in the provision of accommodation for elderly returning emigrants. The then Minister of State, former Deputy Bobby Molloy, also amended the terms of the voluntary housing capital assistance scheme in November 2001, thereby providing that up to 25% of accommodation in new projects undertaken by approved voluntary housing bodies throughout the country with assistance under the scheme should be allocated to elderly emigrants returning to this country who satisfied eligibility criteria drawn up in connection with the Safe Home programme. Many emigrants who might want to come home were not eligible to go on waiting lists for housing accommodation here because they were not resident. The former Minister of State removed that barrier.

Unfortunately, even though the scheme has only been in force for a short time, only 153 returned emigrants have been able to be accommodated. The scheme permitted, for the first time, applicants for such housing to be assessed abroad rather than, as in the past, being required to have returned and be resident here before even being able to apply for such accommodation. Clearly, emigrants resident elsewhere could not take up possible housing accommodation under our housing policies for that reason. Greater use should be made of this scheme by increasing liaison between local authorities and voluntary housing groups here and front line services in the UK, including Irish voluntary agencies, who become aware of the conditions of eligible emigrants. If we can create this contact and co-ordination, we might be able to help many people on a pragmatic basis in that regard. I hope we can do that as a result of some of the new arrangements we will try to put in place.

One of the recommendations made by the task force is the proposal to establish an agency for the Irish abroad to co-ordinate the provision of services for Irish emigrants and Irish communities abroad. I would not exclude the establishment of such an agency in the future. However, the best and most effective way of using scarce funds is through the recognised and experienced voluntary agencies in the front line. They are in the best position to direct these resources to where they can have the greatest effect for those who are most in need. The task force estimated that the annual cost of such an agency would be in the region of €2 million. Clearly, if it were possible to secure the €18 million being sought in the recommendations, the provision of €2 million might be regarded as a justifiable expenditure. However, few Members of the House would thank me if, in the context of a significantly increased budget for support for emigrants of €4 million this year, the majority of it were to be expended on administrative structures.

We need to increase the level of financial support for front line services as a priority. In the meantime, during the course of the year and to acknowledge the need for better co-ordination, I intend to establish a dedicated unit in the Department of Foreign Affairs to work with the voluntary agencies at home and abroad to maximise the impact of our collective efforts. Further consideration can be given to change in administrative structures after we have dealt with the necessary priority work of increasing the level of support to front line services.

No Member of the House can claim to have done enough for our emigrants and nobody is contending that we have. The task force challenges us in the modern context to improve this level of service and proceed in the structured way it has set out. I do not believe we will ever be able to say we have done enough. However, with the task force report and the process of actively implementing it, we have quantifiably changed the nature of our approach. The report is a template which should not be left gathering dust on the shelf, as some would contend, but should be implemented in a structured way over the period ahead. The task is to build on what we have achieved so far as quickly as possible. I am determined to focus on priorities such as building the capacities of voluntary organisations, working closely with voluntary agencies and host governments to assist returning emigrants and those who require special support while they are abroad.

When the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed, an excellent report was done under the Anglo-Irish parliamentary body on Irish emigrants. It highlighted that public representatives in both Parliaments were aware of this problem. It is probably a greater problem than we, as Parliaments, identified a decade ago because of the age profile, the difficulties people are experiencing and the difficulties faced by those who are left behind.

We now have a way forward. I will implement it and continue to work with the voluntary agencies. It was not possible to go from a figure of €2.5 million, as those with experience of Government know, to a figure of €18 million. I did not tell the task force not to give me its optimum position. It did that and was right to do so as it is committed to this area. We are beginning to respond in a greater way than in the past. We must improve our efforts, as I have acknowledged, and will do so in the years ahead. We will have a better structure and response as a result of the work it has done which was not in vain.

Mr. O'Dowd

I wish to share my time with Deputy Deenihan.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. O'Dowd

I congratulate the Labour Party on tabling this important motion which goes to the heart of how we look after the people who have given so much to our society and country for many years. By going to the United Kingdom or America, they supported their families and made it possible for them to live properly at home and to be educated. Emigration has been a scourge for generations. People had to leave their homeland to work abroad, particularly in America and the United Kingdom.

We have not given proper and due recognition to the work emigrants have done for this country for generations. One way we could do this would be to give them a stake in our electoral process. I was a member of one of the Oireachtas committees during the last Government which dealt with this issue. It considered the issue of giving emigrants a vote in presidential elections. We must consider this issue in greater detail because it would help to recognise the contribution first generation Irish people abroad have made. If they go to the consulate of their choice and produce a valid passport, we should allow them to exercise their franchise in an election such as the presidential election. They would have to register through the proper means and the onus would be on them to vote. However, if Americans in Ireland can vote in a presidential election in the United States, Irish people in America should be able to vote in our elections.

Allowing our emigrants to vote here would give them a stake and an interest in what is happening in this country and would act as an agent for policy change. I acknowledge that Members are not paying lip service to the problems faced by emigrants. However, if they were stakeholders in our system, they could be a force for change, particularly as their numbers are large. A majority might vote in an election. We should recognise the responsibility and influence shown by the Irish diaspora. We take their money. Therefore, we should allow them to vote here.

There was also a proposal that emigrants should have a voice in the Seanad, although there would be difficulties in working out the mechanics. It was proposed that when the Taoiseach was nominating his Members, he would nominate the emigrant bodies which would have to go through a transparent selection process. That would be an important recognition. Those issues should be addressed in the future.

The television programme which many people mentioned to me brought home the reality of life for emigrants, particularly elderly people and those who did not have a good education or good health. Surveys in the United Kingdom show that people of Irish origin tend to have shorter lives than those from other emigrant communities. They have many health issues, including those associated with alcohol and loneliness. Many find themselves locked in a lifestyle which they enjoyed many years ago but now they do not have any friends or relatives. Although they are only a short boat trip or flight from Ireland, they do not make the effort and we do not reach out to help them. While successive Governments recognised this problem, they did not invest enough in the work done by emigrant societies. I acknowledge the tremendous work done by the churches, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, among emigrants abroad. It is worthwhile and fruitful work which is greatly appreciated.

Many young people who went to America before 11 September 2001 cannot come home because they are there illegally. The presidential election in America offers a great opportunity in that regard. President Bush made a significant statement about immigration law and how it may change. While the speculation is that it will benefit Hispanics and other significant emigrant communities in America, there is no reason we cannot use whatever influence we have with the Bush Administration and our friends in the other parties, particularly the Democratic Party, to get a better deal for Irish emigrants. We should tell them that the Irish community will support whatever party supports such an agenda for change. There is no reason it cannot be done. We should drive it forward. The Government should make representations in an effort to resolve this issue.

I am sure there is not one Member of this House who does not know someone, perhaps a member of their family or community, who cannot come home when a relative passes away. I have received such calls as I am sure others have also. If the people concerned come home for a funeral, they will lose everything they have because they will not be able to go back. We must tackle this. President Bush mentioned temporary work visas and the allocation of more green cards. The agenda is there, as the Minister acknowledged, and it was worked on by former members of Congress and the Senate. Bruce Morrisson was one of the most important and influential people in that regard. We must get our act together this year. If we do not seize the opportunity this year, it may be gone forever. We do not want that to happen. The work our emigrants do and the contribution they make to American society have always been acknowledged and welcomed, in spite of the evil visited on the world on 11 September 2001. We should use our influence and not leave any stone unturned.

With increasing regularity I meet people in their 60s or 70s whose partners are gone, or dead, who return from the United Kingdom to Drogheda with nothing but who want to live at home. They need housing and a few have taken up the scheme the Minister mentioned. We should be more dynamic and challenge ourselves to meet those people's needs. We can all agree to this motion which the Labour Party has so properly put before us.

Mr. Deenihan

I thank Deputy O'Dowd for sharing his time with me. I acknowledge the Labour Party's contribution in putting down this motion. It is some time since we had a debate on emigration, perhaps not since the late 1980s when I was a signatory to a similar motion. Coming from County Kerry I have a special interest in the emigrant question because like so many of the western seaboard counties, Kerry was very much affected by emigration. I came to know many of those who went away in the 1950s and the 1980s, first through my travels as a student then with the Kerry football team and later as a politician. Most of those people would eventually tell one that they felt they were forgotten when they left Ireland. While that is an exaggeration, the adage, "out of sight out of mind" prevailed, for good reason. This was not a very wealthy country and it found it difficult to look after its own population besides at times trying to look after the emigrant population.

However, the moral support needed by so many was missing. More than any other group, the church made an effort to look after emigrants, for example, when I was in Australia recently I was told the Irish missionaries went out there to look after the Irish emigrants, not to convert the native people. Although the church did its best there was never a coherent policy on emigrants. A start was made in the 1980s with the establishment of the DÍON committee but for many years the funding allocation to it did not increase from £250,000 until it was doubled at the start of the 1990s, when it remained static for several years until it was substantially increased in recent years.

The problems of the typical emigrant in London who unfortunately fell on bad times were housing and health. The typical Irish building workers stayed in bed and breakfast accommodation and when they stopped working had to move on, when they rented basic accommodation. However, they could not afford the increases in rents, especially in London. They were not insured and did not receive the benefits that would have been theirs had they been. Most worked with builders who did not pay insurance for them but they were not too concerned about that at the time. They were happy to receive wages at the end of the week, with no strings attached, much of which they sent home to their families. They never looked to the rainy day. Many thought about coming home some time but that connection would have been cut because of the death of their parents, their brothers and sisters had aged and their extended family did not have the same concern for them. That happens regularly, even in charitable families. The problem remains for those emigrants who went to England after the Second World War.

The problems of the young Irish who went in the 1980s were different. Some were forced to live in squats and in cardboard settlements in cities and some of those got into drugs and drink or did not want to work. Many of the organisations with which I was familiar were based in London and worked hard to establish hostels and provide services for the Irish emigrant who became destitute and marginalised in various ways in the 1980s. My overall impression of those services was of many well-meaning people but much fragmentation. Groups were established in different parts of the United Kingdom and around London, all looking after Irish emigrants but not connected. The Federation of Irish Societies tried its best to pull them together but the groups were not working closely enough. There is now an umbrella group. I suggest that the Minister encourage people to work closer together and that the substantial funding he distributes be properly targeted and spent.

The United Kingdom is so close to us there is no reason not to identify those people who would like to come home. Local authorities could play an important role in this. Each authority should conduct an audit of those who want to return to its area. The Minister mentioned the initiative of Bobby Molloy, the former Minister of State at the then Department of the Environment and Local Government. There is no reason why we could not provide respond-type initiatives for emigrants who want to come back to Ireland. The development in Ballybunion, in which several emigrants are interested and want to take up accommodation, is very welcome. Were it replicated around the country some of the most vulnerable of our emigrants in London could be housed. I recall going through cardboard city in London in 1989 where most of the people were Irish and Scottish, with alcohol-related problems, and I met someone from my county. It is a tragic story for some and I doubt that has changed.

There are young people in America who were undocumented for some time. They were unfortunate in the various visa lottery schemes while many others applied for visas but never used them, which was very unfair. These people knew they would never use the visas but applied and never took them up thus depriving people permanently resident in America of the opportunity to take them. There is currently a reluctance to take on the three-year working visa announced by President Bush because people feel that they could be gone after three years. That is something the Minister of State might consider.

There is room to honour Irish emigrants in this country. It has been done in Manchester. A Fianna Fáil Deputy proposed using the Custom House. I will speak to the Minister of State later about that. Our emigrants and their efforts should be recognised in some way in this country.

Debate adjourned.