David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I join the Chair and others in welcoming our guests and thanking them for their interesting and timely presentation. Reference was made to three groups who return to Ireland: those who come through planned methods, those who come through necessity and those who come through crisis. Will the witnesses give us a pen-picture of the breakdown percentage-wise with respect to those three groups? That might be difficult.

On planned returns, when people go abroad, put down roots and have children who go to school and so on, it is harder to come back. From my trips to various places, I have noted there is a window after a number of years when people make that decision, before their roots go down. After that happens, it is harder to come back and they build up friends and relationships. Will the witnesses comment on that?

Deputy Brady has covered much of the practical stuff and we should follow up with respect to the HRC and all that. I am interested in the converting of professional certificates and it would be interesting to get some detail on which are the most difficult and numerous the witnesses are coming across. We have all come across people trying to come here, whether pharmacists, doctors, nurses or whatever else, who find they cannot practice even though they have qualifications from other jurisdictions. More detail on that would be interesting.

A point was made on the difficulty in adjusting to living in Ireland again, socially and emotionally. I am interested in that. Are the witnesses saying somebody coming here is coming to a strange place even though they came from here originally? Do they come back and find they are in a different country? Will the witnesses flesh that out? We can probably tackle head on the practical stuff Deputy Brady mentioned but the social and emotional bit causes me some concern.