Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will proceed to No. 3 on our agenda, US immigration reform. I put this issue on the agenda because we will be dealing with the report on the visit in private session later. Many of the members are interested in getting an update on what is happening on immigration reform in the US at present. An all-party delegation of four members of the committee travelled to the US last October. The members were Deputy Nash, Senator Daly, Deputy Crowe and myself.

We went there at what we believed to be a very appropriate time to lobby members of the US Congress on immigration reform. The US Senate passed a Bill earlier in the summer by 68 votes to 22, so the issue was on the agenda for Congress when it returned in September. Unfortunately, due to events in Syria, it was postponed to later in the year. However, we were there at a very good time. The climate was ripe. We met ten or 15 very good congressmen from the Republicans as well as the Democrats. The focus of the visit was on the Republicans to get them to push for immigration reform. As we all know, however, a week is a long time in politics and since then the focus has moved to the Democrats because of Obamacare. The Republicans are in no hurry to take Obamacare off the agenda, which means, unfortunately, immigration reform has gone off the agenda.

We thought at the time there was a window of opportunity from Thanksgiving to Christmas to push for immigration reform. We did not expect to get full citizenship on the agenda so a number of the Bills we brought before Congress were mainly to do with legalisation. The Democrats would be pushing for citizenship because they believe the Latino vote will be on their side for the presidential elections while, of course, the Republicans do not want that to happen. We thought there would be a compromise, that a bipartisan approach would be taken and that a Bill on legalisation, perhaps, could be put before Congress before Christmas. It appears unlikely that will happen before Christmas, but it certainly has not gone off the agenda. I believe we should push to keep immigration reform on the agenda for the committee for the coming months, particularly in our work programme for 2014.

I commend the embassy in the US, Anne Anderson, Ralph Victory and the other personnel in the embassy for the work they are doing. While we were doing our bit there for three or four days, the embassy is pushing this agenda all the time and will be meeting key congressmen and their staff over the coming months.

I believe our visit was very successful. The up-to-date information we have from Washington is that it is highly unlikely anything will happen on immigration reform before Christmas. While there is a window of opportunity in the new year, there will be other issues to be discussed in Congress as well. Aside from Obamacare, there are budget issues. Congressman Paul Ryan is the chairman of that committee. The budget issue has been postponed but it will be on the agenda early in the new year. In addition, the elections in November take precedence and a number of primaries will take place in March, April and May, so there will be a small window of opportunity to push for immigration reform. On 17 March the Taoiseach will visit Washington and that issue will again be at the top of the agenda.

The visit was worthwhile. As one congressman told me, ours is the only country that lobbied congressmen on immigration reform, despite that the undocumented Irish only account for 50,000 of the 11 million undocumented people in the US. There are not as many people crossing the border from Mexico at present. The Mexican economy is beginning to grow again so there is not the same pressure there. All eyes will be on the Republicans again to see if they can push this agenda. Perhaps people such as Congressman Gutiérrez of Illinois and Congressman Paul Ryan, whom we believe to be working together, can take a bipartisan approach to this, bring some type of legislation to Congress in the new year and put immigration reform back on the agenda.

That is the current position. The climate changes very quickly in Congress. At the time we thought there was a window of opportunity, but now the issue is Obamacare and the Republicans are in no hurry to put immigration reform back on the agenda. Deputy Crowe travelled with us on that visit. Does he wish to comment on it? We will deal with the report in private session.