Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I agree with Deputy Kenny on immigration. It is a matter of trying to work our way through the issue and reach agreement. While I see the sense of the Deputy's point on the North, I am not sure of the legal issue or what that would open up to the other citizens of the UK if we were to reach a bilateral agreement as it would be open to anyone in the UK. Nonetheless, I take the point and will raise the matter with those involved.

With regard to the welfare organisations, between the UK and the USA we are, thankfully, investing a substantial amount of money. The Deputy's point is that we should focus that investment on the older Irish. The DÍON grants are doing a good job in that regard in the UK and that money is now being used to lever further funding through UK local and municipal authorities to help with housing trusts and funds. It is doing good work and is certainly beneficial to the aged Irish there. We have also directly helped some of the centres which work in the community, operate meals on wheels schemes and help the elderly Irish in the UK. This operates a little differently in the USA, but I will raise the point with the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern.

Deputy Hayes is correct with regard to investment. We had more than one week of anguish on that proposal four years ago because Senator Kerry made a very strong point and, as the House will recall, we were on high alert to lobby against that. There have been renewed soundings in this regard and we have been watching the situation carefully. We will obviously lobby on the issues. Of course this sounds a very attractive policy from the US perspective. The good news is that many of the multinational companies are not in favour and so will also be lobbying against it. However, it is an issue on which we will closely focus and we will work to deal with it.

Overall, we will do everything we can to keep our contacts bipartisan. It will obviously be a difficult year but it is in our interest to remain supportive of both the parties in the US. While there will be a winner and a loser in the presidential election, in terms of how things operate on the Hill, particularly in the Senate, nothing will get done unless we have both of them on our side. We learned that with regard to the immigration issue but on many other issues we need friends on both sides to get things done.

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