Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for their presentations. I am particularly interested in this matter and have raised it with the Minister. We are letting our emigrants down. They are a legacy of the Government's failure and they are being failed again on their return. We need to break down any barriers and unfortunately there are too many of them.

Rural Ireland has been hit badly by mass emigration. If we are serious about rural recovery, surely it would make sense to assist our emigrants in every way possible. I am aware of families who have returned to Offaly who met serious barriers. One student managed to get herself a loan to pay her fees for the first year of college. She could no longer afford it and had to take time out to work. It is so unfair. These families were forced out of this country because of the failure of Government. They could have stayed and availed of every assistance but they chose not to and to go and work. They are treated in an appalling manner and we need to look at that.

We have heard a great deal about the undocumented Irish. It is shameful that an undocumented Irish emigrant can open a bank account in the US but cannot do so here on their return. We must get serious about tackling this and breaking down those barriers. There are pragmatic approaches that could be taken, and Crosscare has listed these in its report, which is very good. We often hear about the cost of making changes but we could use the existing infrastructure, dedicated assistance within citizen's advice, within our financial institutions and within the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, as the issues that I hear relate mainly to these areas. Of course matters related to social protection and opening bank accounts are significant.

There are some simple steps we can take here in the immediate to short term to alleviate the hardships and the burdens faced by these families. How would the witness view such an approach?