Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)

Such people can make a great contribution to the economy and to services. People often refer to the many nurses who have come to this country from Thailand, some of whom I have met at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children. They do excellent work and the level of expertise they bring to their profession is second to none. That is one of the few positive aspects of the immigration "problem" that is mentioned, as people sometimes prefer to concentrate on other problematic issues. We need a more balanced and informed approach to diversity among our people, but that is not happening.

We must ask why this is not happening. To a large extent the media seem to concentrate on the difficulties. The only positive report I have recently seen was that two foreign nationals were to stand for local government. Why was there such a big surprise about this? We do not see a problem with our people standing for election in other states, particularly in our nearest neighbour, where many Irish people and people of Irish decent have been highly successful in the political arena. However, in this country we seem to have a different view of any person from abroad. The election of our great friend, Dr. Moosajee Bhamjee, to this House created considerable media attention as if people almost felt it should not have happened.

We need to have a broader, more inclusive and positive approach as well as identifying the problems. Unfortunately this referendum focuses on one specific aspect of the race issue — that of citizenship. Along with others I fear it will aggravate the almost exclusively negative approach to people coming to this country. There seems to be an excessive concentration on illegal immigrants coming here and we have not mentioned the enormous contribution made to our economy by those coming here on work visas. I have personal experience of people coming from many other countries who have contributed enormously to Irish society particularly in the medical area.

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