Mr. Fiachra ? Luain:

May I answer first? Then anyone else who wants to come in afterwards may do so. I have studied developmental economics, so the following are not just attitudes. I look at the Irish economy and see great demand. Every party agrees that we need to build houses and replace those people from Donegal and other counties we lost after the last recession. There are people here working for Deliveroo and other such companies, whose profits are not declared and which do not pay taxes on those profits. Those people would love to be contributing towards our capital infrastructure needs. It is very hard to hate the foreigner when the foreigner is building your house. We need to look at models whereby we can show, just as the Irish built America and post-war Britain, that when we allow these people to come in, they are here for education and also for professional development. They should be let in, given free Safe Pass and manual handling training and got trained up in the things we need, such as caregiving. They should be let do that with dignity and be able to balance that with study and work. Evening classes should be facilitated. People should be let work during the day, when the demand for their work is there. It should be understood that we advertise this country as a place where people can work and study. Study and work should be dignified. It should be ensured that applications are done, like in Canada, before people arrive in order that when they arrive, the State knows who they are, they have their PPS numbers and everything they need and they are facilitated to work and study without other concerns. At the moment, there are three-month waiting lists, PPS numbers and IRP cards never arrive, and sometimes they are in the wrong name. The system is half-baked. We could look at the Canadian model or other models out there and look at which sectors really need people.

I would look at construction, healthcare and other sectors. When people finish their two years of English-language training, they should be facilitated to train in whatever is needed in our economy and society. There is a mismatching of the resources we have available with the needs that are there. We just need to make those meet. Then we would have a much happier society. Since the pandemic, we have not been spending enough time with one another to help build that mutual understanding and empathy that build societal cohesion and make the Irish part of Chicago and the Irish part of London. We need to make sure that is built on strong fundamentals. We are not doing that at the moment because right now it is for the profit of the private English language schools and the landlords cramming the students into houses. We need root-and-branch reform and we need to make sure everyone is treated with the dignity he or she deserves.