asked the Minister for External Affairs if he has made or will make arrangements with the British Government to grant facilities to enable wives now resident in Éire to join their husbands who are employed in Great Britain, especially in cases where the husbands have procured the necessary housing accommodation.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Travel Facilities to Great Britain.
I would invite the Deputy's attention to the reply I gave to a similar question which he addressed to me on the 11th October last. I informed him on that occasion that the British authorities were not prepared, owing to housing and supply difficulties, to grant facilities to enable Irishmen going to work in England to bring their wives and families with them.
I understand that the same general considerations still apply in this class of case and that the British authorities are not prepared to grant facilities to enable wives now resident in Ireland to join their husbands who are employed in Great Britain. The Deputy will appreciate that, even if the housing problem is solved in a particular case, there still remains the supply problem, and British official announcements indicate that this problem has, if anything, become more acute in Great Britain in recent months.
The Taoiseach is aware that the British Government and other Governments made arrangements to take English brides away to America to their husbands and facilities were granted. Is it not possible for this Government to approach the British Government and ask them to allow the few, hundred brides in, where the men have settled down, or apparently settled down, in England?
Surely the Deputy realises that in one case it means taking people away from the supply problem and relieving it, whereas in the other case it means accentuating the problem?
What I want to convey to the Taoiseach is that Governments have agreed amongst themselves to grant these facilities and a hundred or two would not make much difference.
The Deputy is clearly ignoring the difficulty. He is talking about taking people away from Britain. This is a question of bringing people in, where the supply problem is very acute at the moment.
Would the Taoiseach be able to say whether the British authorities make any discrimination between the wives of Irishmen in permanent employment in Britain, as against the wives of Irishmen who are there for a temporary stay?
I do not think that, at the moment, there is any differentiation made.
Would the Taoiseach say whether the British restriction applies where a wife has an offer of employment from some British source?
That is a different matter, where the wife is going over and, getting employment, but even that, I think, has been stopped now.