Michael Mulcahy (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)

I read the Minister's speech and I welcome it. The issue is about the large number of people who have come to Ireland from the new accession countries, which I support fully, as I support the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. However, like those countries that have their own national interests, we also have our own national interest in respect of the numbers of workers coming here and whether they are the appropriate workers for our needs. The Minister spoke about a new green card system and I welcome that.

Some countries are not granting full access to the current list of accession states and they will probably not grant full access to Bulgarian and Romanian workers. If some of those larger countries are shut off from those workers, is there a possibility that a large number of workers in categories we do not need would come here if we grant unfettered access to our labour market?

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