Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

I welcome the legislation. It demonstrates for the first time the value of and need for migrant workers. This is an important signal to communicate but I have concerns that a two-tier system is being created. We seek to employ highly-skilled, well-educated workers yet the same regime does not apply to people lower down the range of skills. The legislation is cautious and conservative and we need to push the boat out further.

It was suggested that this is a new situation for Ireland and we are only now putting systems in place. In fact, we know a considerable amount on this subject from the other side. We put a great deal of money into our education system and in the 1980s our best educated people, graduates from college, went to Britain and the United States and succeeded. Like most Irish people I had family in that category and the argument was made that this emigration restricted our economic growth as we did not have the skill sets to draw in people. The same argument applies the other way round now. By drawing people from other countries we are creating restrictions in those countries and growth in those economies may be restricted as we receive the brightest and best workers. That we do not cater for people lower on the skills ladder is a problem. It also creates a pull factor, where Ireland is perceived as a place to come to work, yet when people consider this, there is a restriction. I do not say we should have an open door policy but we should have a less restrictive policy.

In our economy we are fortunate to have a low level of unemployment. People taking up skills at the bottom tier of the economy are generally non-nationals. They are taking up jobs that Irish nationals do not seek. We should learn from this. The legislation will not change anything for the vast majority of people here or those who seek to come here. I am not opposed to regulation but the matter needs to be considered further.

I wish to address a concept about which Geroge Lee spoke recently. He talked about "growthless" jobs. Some of this can be accounted for by migrant workers. For example, a man who works in the construction industry contacted me. He came here on a permit, with accommodation provided. He works long hours, is a skilled worker and pays taxes. He has a wife and son in another country and sought permission for them to join him. Their application was rejected on the grounds that the wife and son would be an economic drain on the economy. I advised him to represent his case in a different manner as his accommodation is provided. When I teased it out further with him I learned that his employer suggested it was not a good idea for him to declare that because it would be regarded as benefit in kind and he would have to pay more tax on it. Essentially, it is benefit in kind but that man worked for less money, a significant amount of which was sent home to maintain his family. That money was not spent in our economy. My argument is that jobless growth is the result of migration policies, and the example I have given is probably a reasonable one.

I welcome the direction in which the Bill is going but we can only form our opinions based on examples we have been given. I spoke to a family in the past few weeks. The woman is a staff nurse who works both full-time and part-time in different jobs. Her husband is an engineer who expects to take up employment in the next few weeks. They have a child and are living here under the residency rule but they have three other children, aged 9, 13 and 15, living in another country with family members for the past three years. They sought to have those children join them. I would have thought those people would have a good chance of qualifying under the green card system because of the skills set but there is no relaxation in terms of that process and a little common sense needs to be introduced to it. When examining people's applications we should not refuse them if we are going in that direction. These people are here to stay. They are entitled to stay here and to work but the fact that their children cannot joint them is an impediment. I regard it as a cruel policy when it is likely that these people will stay here.

Health care professionals from this country have travelled to countries like India and the Philippines seeking health care workers to join them here. I had the experience earlier this year of having a family member in hospital who was very well cared for by people from India, the Philippines and other countries. We must appreciate the valuable role these people play but we cannot regard migrant workers simply as economic drones. We all function within families and we must appreciate that non-nationals also function within families. We must take a more caring approach to the people we are asking to come here because in many cases we are adding significant stress to their lives by virtue of the fact that they must endure very long separations from their families, which is not a fair approach.

I welcome the Bill as a first step. It demonstrates the value of migrant workers but I would like it to be amended on later Stages with a view to introducing some relaxation of the rules.

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