Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

That has been addressed for example in respect of nurses. Other issues arise. I have dealt with consultants who are critical to maintaining our health service whose close relatives cannot visit them because the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform regards anybody who comes in as wanting to live here.

This applies even to people who have clear economic reason to stay where they are but want to visit here. We have a closed mind because we are unused to this situation. We need joined-up thinking in the future if we are to address these issues.

My concern is that we will have one category under what the Minister classifies as "green card" and I regard as simply putting on a legislative basis a category that already exists, and a second category that will be regarded as a lesser breed. This raises the issue of ownership of the work permit. The Minister indicated that the work permit can be issued to the individual.

Someone who receives a work permit for which his or her employer has applied will depend on the employer to reapply in order to renew that permit. People caught in that second category will encounter all the difficulties with which we grapple on behalf of those already here, namely, impermanence, the inability to open bank accounts, difficulties in getting even medium-term leases and rented accommodation and difficulty taking out loans. We must tease out all these points and get them right.

It is not good enough that there is such a gap between Departments. Other Deputies must have encountered the same problems dealing with what I call Burgh Quay, where two Departments are located, the Departments of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The Departments seem to operate independently. It is extremely difficult and frustrating even for a Member of the Oireachtas to deal with them.

I could cite cases in which I receive contradictory information from these two Departments. They are not joined up or connected. It is difficult to deal with the issue of visiting relatives. Economically the Minister's Department attracts people who are critical to our economy or services such as the health service but the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has a different mind set and attitude and often will not allow the close relatives of these people to visit them on temporary basis often. I have gone through that process many times. I can give the Minister chapter and verse if he is interested.

We need to deal with this problem in a structured way. I published a document called Ending the Chaos years ago when we had a significant backlog of asylum cases. Like the Minister's Bill it had three pillars, namely, asylum seekers, economic migrants and integration. They run across Departments but must be dealt with together or we will not find a solution to benefit society.

I do not know from where an integration policy will come. Notionally, it should come from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform which has primary responsibility for migration matters. Deputy Hogan referred to a Newsweek article about Polish workers coming here. They are not covered by work permits because they are members of the European Union but many thousands have come and are in all our towns where they are welcome. They are hardworking, enthusiastic and remind us all of the Irish of the past.

That article painted a bleak picture. I am not suggesting it is accurate but it is at least partially accurate. It concerns people who have no legal difficulties. Those who will benefit from work permits will have more difficulty because of the qualifications attached to a work permit regime such as we are setting up. We need an integration strategy for the new member states of the European Union that is more developed than the existing one. We need a separate strategy for people who have been invited to work here under the work permits regime that we are fine-tuning through this legislation. It is an area we must address.

Public perception is extremely important. We all hear it and sometimes Members play up to it. The fiasco of Irish Ferries, where a company determines that it should "disemploy" Irish workers, in this case substituting eastern Europeans at a fraction of the cost, allows incipient racism to bed down, there is no doubt of that. David Begg of ICTU made a very compelling case and was the first to articulate it in those terms. If we allow the perception to bed down that non-national workers are undercutting the Irish labour force and will take our jobs and work for buttons, there will be chaos. We are sowing the seeds of racism and the worst sort of xenophobia that will result in great societal difficulties. We must grasp that issue very carefully and firmly.

I will not go off on a tangent regarding Irish Ferries, an issue unique to the maritime sector, since we can apply Irish law elsewhere. However, as we have seen regarding Gama and other situations, we must have a mechanism to identify all those cases to ensure that does not happen and that we have an agency proactive in explaining to people the need for a flexible labour force, how welcome they are, and that we guarantee to protect current labour law and rights in bringing about economic transformation.

I deplore the attitude shown by IBEC to the Irish Ferries dispute, which has played into this and allowed a belief to develop that we will allow the undermining of Irish jobs and pay rates and the advances made by workers over the years. We must be very robust and clear on all sides of the House in explaining time and again the new type of workforce required in this country but that all are welcome at Irish pay rates and that we are determined to enforce Irish law in that regard.

The bureaucracy attached to basic matters is incredible. A highly qualified young architect came to me, having been offered a job in this jurisdiction. Since he is from South America, he was told that he must go back to his home country to make the application, although he is already here with the family of his Irish girlfriend. He has something to offer and has a job, yet we want him to return to South America, to a country where Ireland does not have an embassy, so that he can go to a consul general and apply for a work permit that will be submitted to the nearest Irish Embassy, which happens to be in Buenos Aires, to be transmitted to Dublin so that the authorities there can make a determination and send it all back. If that is the level of complexity involved, it is enough to do anyone's head in.

The information that I have received from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is that he does not have to do that at all. Achieving clarity on the issue, or even checking the website for information, is very difficult. These areas must be reformed, with much closer co-operation between the Departments of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and Enterprise, Trade and Employment to ensure that people whose skills we need are respected and not belittled by the systems that we put in place.

Recently I had a debate on the radio with a well-known economic commentator. I will take the liberty of mentioning that third party, who is robust enough to tolerate it, Mr. Moore McDowell. I was absolutely taken aback by his attitude, which is that what is happening at Irish Ferries is the dislocation of Irish workers by cheaper ones, that it will happen time and again in our economy, and that it is a good development. It is important that we make it clear that it is no such thing and that it will not be tolerated. The Minister must be clear in his discussions with IBEC that he expects it to work in partnership. The consequences are not only very serious for economic development and the maintenance of social partnership but for the maintenance of a structured society with a changed ethnic structure achieved in peace and harmony. Those issues are very serious and not for glib comments to be thrown in from a narrow economic perspective.

I welcome section 22 of the Bill, which addressed an issue with which we have dealt as individual public representatives — the prohibition on employers deducting recruitment expenses or retaining the personal documents, including passports, of migrant workers. There have been clear abuses. I have dealt with individuals who felt like bonded slaves since they could not leave because their documentation was withheld by an employer. We must have a clear register of abusive employers to ensure that they are never again allowed work permits.

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