Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I visited Washington D.C. from last Tuesday evening until Thursday evening. In the course of that visit I had a meeting with the various organisations lobbying on the immigration issue on behalf of the 50,000 or so undocumented Irish in the US and who have been working with other groups for comprehensive immigration reform. Following that I had a series of meetings on Capitol Hill with representatives from both sides of the House of Congress. I met the leader of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and the leadership of the Republican group, including Paul Ryan. There was a leadership election taking place on the Republican side, following the unexpected defeat of the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Congressman Eric Cantor, in his primary. I also met Cecilia Muñoz, the adviser on domestic policy to President Obama.

Prior to my visit, a degree of momentum had been building towards comprehensive immigration reform. The Senate passed a Bill on this issue last year, which would have addressed the Irish problem and provided a path to legalisation for the 50,000 or so undocumented Irish and would also have provided for an E3 visa for new Irish immigrants. Members of the House of Representatives took the view that they wanted to pursue their own legislation. That has been under discussion for some time, particularly on the Republican side, which has a majority in the House of Representatives. It was the assessment of our embassy that progress was being made along those lines. When we planned the visit to Washington D.C. the expectation was that it would be a visit to try to give added impetus to that momentum and in particular to ensure that the issues of Irish interest would be addressed in any legislation.

The press reportage of the unexpected defeat of Eric Cantor speculated that this was related to the immigration issue. In my discussions the general view emerged that this was not an immigration related defeat, there were other factors involved. His defeat could, however, have an implication for the progress of the immigration issue.

When I was there last week it was difficult to read just how extensive that implication would be. I got the sense from people I talked to that there is a wish to advance immigration reform. Everybody accepts that there is a certain political imperative to getting an immigration Bill passed. It is a difficult political issue in the US, as we know. Congressional mid-term elections are coming up in November. It is a question, therefore of timing. There is a window in July when I hope something can be done. If it goes past the summer it will be more difficult in the run-in to the November elections, which will then leave the possibility of something being done in what is known as the "lame duck" period or in early 2015. If it does not happen in that period, the danger is that it will become enmeshed in the lead-in to the presidential election in 2016.

In a nutshell, when my visit was planned some weeks ago we were seeing momentum. The Eric Cantor defeat put that on pause, but I came away from Washington more optimistic of progress than I was when I went there. It seems to me that if it were put to a straight vote in the House of Representatives now there would probably be a majority for approving immigration legislation but it is not as simple as that because a range of political factors come into play. While I was there an issue very much to the fore of public consciousness was the movement of children across the Mexican border, as many as 50,000, in many cases unaccompanied. That was playing into the discussion too.