Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being here today. I was listening to the piece on the J1 visa. My children had such a wonderful time in the United States with the J1 visa programme. After they graduated from college, my son worked in the United States for one of the hotel companies. He was brought back after he qualified and he played golf on all of the top courses in the United States. He stayed in Marriott hotels right across the US . The relationship that Ireland has with the US through J1 visa programme is something else. I thank the witnesses for their work on that and for the support they offer to all young students when they go over there. A negativity existed during the last Administration and I hope that we see this reversed and the relationship develop again.

I want to touch on a sore subject where many Irish feel so hard done by, which is the undocumented Irish. My great friend and former Senator Billy Lawless put it in a nutshell when he said that they are illegal immigrants in that country. We need to do everything we can to ensure that they stop taking the risk and they start trying to emigrate in a legal way. It hurts me greatly to hear people talk about the undocumented Irish and yet we have thousands in this country whose residency in Ireland we are not prepared to legitimise. We need to play this game evenly. We need to have a campaign to explain to people that if they are going to emigrate to the United States, they need to do it legally. They need to touch base with organisations such as the coalition before they go in order that they know exactly what boxes need to be ticked in order to arrive over there legally. I am interested in the witnesses' views on that.

There are also issues for those expatriates who have gone from Ireland to America to senior positions. These people are working for some of the major multinationals in the pharmaceutical and technology areas, and yet their children who are born and reared in Ireland cannot return to Ireland to go to university without paying full fees. Given the relationship we have had with the United States and the huge interconnectedness between the two countries, we must work on this jointly to service the Irish expatriates. From the few times I have been in the United States, I am aware that the expatriates over there do a fantastic job for the Irish community who arrive in the United States. We do them a great disservice by not looking after their children when it comes to third level education.

I thank Ms Kennelly for her statement on the wellness issue. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a young person or a person in middle age, living in the United States of America to find that a parent, a sibling or a relation in Ireland is terminally ill, or that some catastrophe has happened at home. These people must sit their time out and cannot move because if they did come home, they would not be going back. So many of them have their lives set up there. Maybe I am talking out of both sides of that argument in that on the one side, I am saying that they really need to stop becoming illegal while on the other, I am saying it is great that Ms Kennelly has a wellness initiative set up over there.

Will Ms Kennelly indicate if there anything the coalition needs from us to improve the service it provides for our people on the ground and to assist it in the job it is doing? Perhaps Ms Leonard Dibra will deal with the issue of the expatriates sending their children home. Mr. Collins and Mr. Stahl might address the concerns on the J1 visa and the undocumented Irish. I really appreciate the witnesses being here. My former colleague Billy Lawless has a huge interest in what the coalition is doing.