Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests this morning. I remarked to my colleague, Deputy Harkin, a moment ago that Georgia's ambassador to Ireland is in the Houses so frequently that he is like the 167th Member of Dáil Éireann. He is doing incredibly good work in representing his country.

I will not rehash previous contributions but one area in which, as the ambassador knows, I have a particular interest is people coming from Georgia to seek asylum. To his credit, he has always acknowledged that they are predominantly economic migrants looking for an opportunity to work. However, because of our system, there are no opportunities for them to seek a work permit and contribute to society. They are seeking asylum and costing the State a considerable amount of money at a time when we do not have capacity. I would like to know what Georgia is doing to try to alleviate that pressure on our system. It does not look good, as I have said before, for a country that is actively pursuing an application to become a member of the EU, to have such a volume of people seeking asylum. I have said to my colleagues previously, and especially to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, that we should be much more flexible in granting work permits, particularly in sectors of our economy in which we have issues in filling jobs, such as hospitality, haulage and construction, rather than forcing people to fake asylum. They can spend six months claiming asylum, after which they have an opportunity to work. We should be working with countries such as Georgia. I am aware that the Georgian ambassador has put forward proposals to the Department and we should be doing more on that.