Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I just have a few things to address to Mr. Kelly. He and Deputy Tully were starting to develop a conversation there on immigration. Once we open the issue of immigration in this country, there is nearly a tendency to say you are anti-immigration. Mr. Kelly was coming at it this morning from the perspective of how much we need immigrants. I do not think anyone here would disagree with him. We really do need immigrants. From that perspective, there needs to be a parting of the way for those people in the asylum process and those immigrants we need here. I say this because there is a tendency to paint everyone with the one brush. The second thing concerns people in the process of getting residency here. I refer to how we deal with them.

I cannot speak so much for Northern Ireland, but for the Republic, and I say this without having a political hat on, our process of dealing with them needs a review. I think we need to look at those people there and waiting in the system. We need to create a system that will allow these people to get into the labour force while they are waiting for an outcome. We need to deal with their applications, but we also need to allow them to work. I feel the system we have now is contributing to creating a situation where people who are coming in here are on a payment and get into a role or a mode of not working. I do not think this is helpful or useful. This might be a conversation for another day, but perhaps Mr. Kelly might care to comment on this point.

Energy was also touched on. If Mr. Kelly could, I ask him to develop that point further. We hear an awful lot now about the potential of offshore energy. In the last couple of years, we have seen the difficulties we have faced in ensuring the lights did not go out. We must ensure there is a transition from power generated from fossil fuels to green energy. From my perspective, certainly, and that of Donegal, we have an infrastructure to carry the potential we have now, and not talk about the potential offshore, to export into all the other markets, whether in the EU or beyond. I think we are sitting in a good position. From a Northern Ireland perspective, then, I would like to get a view from Mr. Kelly on the energy situation there. Moreover, in recent times, we have heard of difficulty in getting the interconnector in place from County Armagh down into County Monaghan. With that in mind, are we thinking far enough ahead in relation to our infrastructure on the island? Are we thinking far enough ahead from the point of view of opening up our offshore potential to export energy to other nations?