Colm Burke (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan, for his contribution and for the important work he is doing. I thank all the people who presented this morning. I will comment on Irish people who have gone abroad in the past 25 or 30 years. A vast number of people in the professional area are now working in the United States, the UK and throughout the world. What level of support are we getting from people who are doing exceptionally well in the UK? I have in mind in particular people who have gone there in the past 20 years. A member of my family worked in a hospital in London between 1991 and 1994. The entire staff in the hospital, including nurses, consultants, junior doctors and the cleaning staff, were Irish. The Irish in Britain representatives painted a picture here but there is another picture of people who have done extremely well as a result of going abroad. What level of engagement is there with the people who are doing well, especially those in the upper end of the socio-economic groups? Could we do more to make them aware that people who went in different times, for example, in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, need support? They did not have the same educational qualifications and did not get the same opportunities.

There is another interesting issue. We always hear about the person who has died in the United States or the UK and of someone trying to track down relatives in Ireland who will benefit from the estate. I have come across several cases in my legal office involving people who have left Ireland and who would benefit from Irish estates but I cannot track them down. We do not seem to have a mechanism for tracking Irish people in the UK or the United States. It is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. In one case I had to keep money on deposit for seven years because we could not track down the relevant person. In the end we failed over a seven-year period to track down the person. It is a two-way process.

Another issue is the matter of getting information to Irish immigrants who are in the United States illegally. What can we do from an Irish point of view? If we have relatives who are in the US and we know they are there illegally, how can we help to get the relevant information to them, if they are afraid to try to look for information themselves? What processes can we set up to help in this area and to help the relevant organisations transmit this information? We have a part to play in the same way as the organisations that are doing major work in this area. What can we do? Are we doing enough in this area? Where can we start making progress to help the organisations in this area?