I raise this issue of funding for welfare and advice service and centres for our illegal or undocumented immigrants in the USA in the light of the disappointing outcome of recent attempts to reform US immigration law, measures which if they had passed would have eased the plight of tens of thousands of young Irish illegals in the US and indeed the immigrants from several other nations also. It is not necessary here and now to go into the details of these legislative proposals or why they have failed. While the attempts at fundamental reform failed, there was the consolation that the US Congress agreed to extend what was officially called the non-preference category (5) immigrant visa programme.
We know this programme by its more popular name, the Donnelly Visa Programme, for which we in this Oireachtas are very grateful. However, its effects on the overall problem, given the size of the problem — the momentous size of the problem — will be very small indeed. I might mention that it provides for something like 30,000 visas, non-category visas, as they call them. They will be distributed among the applicants from 36 countries. I understand that in the archives of the American State Department there are about one million or more applications. We had a lot of talk by Ministers — indeed, it was quite misleading — at the time this legislative proposal was announced, that the Irish Republic had 20,000 or maybe more of these visas. That is absolute nonsense. As the American State Department itself will confirm to you or as the American Embassy will confirm to you, we will be very lucky if in the years 1989 and 1990 we get about 40 per cent of them.
There is a further urgent need to raise this problem because it is brought into even sharper focus by the increased implementation of the employers' sanction provision of the US Immigration Reform Bill of 1986. We have received news of at least 20 young Irish people being detained, put in prison and charged with immigration offences by the immigration and naturalisation services in that country. There are many more such arrests and imprisonment cases of the young Irish which we hear or know nothing about. So it is against this background — and, may I say, an increasingly hostile background — I emphasise that the Irish Government must offer a meaningful outreach or help to the small group of people who take the trouble of providing welfare and advice centres to our people who live abroad.
The status of our immigrants of course is one of being in a legal no-man's land. They feel — and indeed have a right to feel — that they have no legal status. They are afraid to seek their rights in terms of protection at work, in terms of employment or in terms of matters governing their health and welfare. Figures vary but at a conservative estimate there are 150,000 to 170,000 young Irish who live this shadowed and almost fugitive existence in the United States. This Government have an absolute duty, in view of the failure of the legislative reform programme in the United States and also in view of the extended application of the employers' sanction programme, to come to their aid.
My proposal is simple and I am also convinced that it is cheap. The proposal is that the Government in 1989 must set aside a minimum of £1 million to fund at least part of the advice and welfare activities of the organisations who look after and speak for Irish immigrants in the US. I say organisations, but there is only one lay organisation filling this pivotal void, that is, the Irish Immigration Reform Movement which is an organisation born out of the young Irish immigrant community in America. The organisation is active in every US city where there is a significant number of Irish illegals. The Catholic Church is the other major organisation working among and helping the young illegals. Much of the good work is done in co-operation with the IIRM and the Church. The Church has its own limited resources for this work but it is very unfair to ask and expect the Church to continue this work unaided. However, if it is unfair to expect the Church to continue their work unaided, it is absolutely unfair to expect the IIRM to continue its work without aid from the Government here. It is a totally voluntary organisation and its financial resources depend solely on the generosity of its members' subscriptions. I hope that the Minister will not say to us this evening that there is no money to help the IIRM and, indeed, the Churches in their immigrant advice services and activities.
Countless millions of pounds in social welfare payments have been saved as a result of thousands of young people leaving Ireland where our so-called growing economy has failed them. The Government can well imagine where their popularity in opinion polls would be if there were another 100,000 people on the live register and where the programme of control of the public finances would be if those young people could not escape to the United States. If that were not enough, the precedent is there for the Government to act. For years we have provided an official outreach to our immigrants in the United Kingdom. Through the aegis of DION we contribute £250,000 to immigrant welfare and advice groups in Britain. The various Irish societies and immigrant welfare groups in the UK are represented on a working body which controls the spending of this money in Britain. There is an absolute need to continue this work in Britain, but absolute need does not quite describe the necessity to extend this kind of help to our immigrants in the United States.
In the United Kingdom, an Irish citizen has the same protection under the law as any United Kingdom subject. There is no question of their right to live and work in Britain from the point of view of citizenship. That is not so in the United States arising from the present status of the law there. Thousands of our young people, particularly young girls, eke out a type of underground existence with all the fears of a fugitive, often accepting menial work, low pay and awful working conditions because they fear the next tap on the shoulder or the next knock on the door will be an official from the Immigration and Nationalisation Service. Recent events have heightened those fears.
They remain haunted with the fear of injury at work, falling ill, involvement in a road or other kind of accident which would mean going to hospital. Under American health care law, young Irish people need have little fear of the consequences of falling ill and having to go to hospital but very few of them know that as I proved by talking to hundreds of them last September on a visit to various centres in the United States. The Minister will no doubt say that we have consul officials working and liaising with the Irish groups in all the US major cities. They are helping, advising and troubleshooting for young Irish immigrants. No doubt the intentions of our embassy and our dispersed consular officials in the US are good but the vast majority of the immigrant community know nothing about them. Part of the reason for that is that they do not have the resources to reach across to the young Irish.
During the past year, the Irish Immigration Reform Movement and representatives of the Churches met various members of this Government. Last January they met the Minister of State at the Department of Education, Deputy Frank Fahey, who has responsibility for youth and sport. That was quite a famous visit. In September they met the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Brian Lenihan. Last April they met the Taoiseach. At all these meetings a clear indication was given, and this indication was particularly well given at the meeting with the Taoiseach, that funds would be forthcoming. Sadly almost all of 1988 has gone and there is no news of this promise being honoured.
The Minister may say they are waiting for them to come forward with proposals and then they will consider giving them money. That is not the point. The Government have a duty to come to the aid of these people. We cannot ask what is a relatively weak organisation to come up with an expensively arrived at programme and present it to the Government for funding. That is running away from responsibility. The Government must reach out. The responsibility is here. I hope the Minister will indicate that the funding will be available in 1989. I ask the Chair's indulgence for my colleague, Senator Bradford, who wishes to contribute on this subject.
