Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

This is one of the most important pieces of legislation likely to come before this Dáil. I compliment the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and his Department on the very substantial work that has gone into it. I also welcome and recognise the good work being done by the Minister of State, Deputy Conor Lenihan, on the integration of immigrants. No doubt the Bill can be further refined in the course of its passage through the Oireachtas. It certainly deserves to be fully debated at every Stage.

The immigration of the past ten years has become a major force in changing and reshaping our society. It has, by and large, been needed, and been beneficial. There would have been no Celtic tiger, or only a pretty brief one, without it.

I recall during one of the Tipperary by-elections — the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, will have reason to remember the second one very clearly — standing outside the church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Clonmel on a Sunday morning. A man of late middle age and of indeterminate politics came up to me to say how much he preferred what he called the Irish culture of 30 to 40 years ago. It soon became clear that he was talking about immigration. I explained to him with a brevity and conciseness, with which few Deputies might credit me, that when a country becomes prosperous it attracts and needs immigrants. His response was very logical: "Well, couldn't we become a bit less prosperous then?" This is not an aspiration that would be too widely shared. Not just hospitals, but an unimaginable number of enterprises would close down, or be in severe difficulties, if they did not have access to a larger pool of labour than the longer-established population of this country can provide. Rough estimates suggest that up to 10% of our workforce today consists of recent immigrants.

We are a world away from the times when we had a more closed society, from which people emigrated and to which few, bar some self-sustaining wealthy individuals, wished to come. The common travel area on its own worked mostly in one direction, to the benefit of the British economy. Ireland was reluctant to take in refugees and asylum seekers, particularly of another cultural or religious background, at a time when opportunities for employment were scarce, even for those born here.

Mr. de Valera's attempts to let in even a tiny handful of Jews during the war met endless delays by the Department of Justice. We took in small numbers of Hungarians after the rising in 1956 and Vietnamese in the 1970s after the fall of Saigon, some of whom might have preferred to settle elsewhere. Only a certain number stayed and were integrated well.

When I came back from a diplomatic posting in the Federal Republic of Germany some 30 years ago, and before settling into a new position in the Department of Foreign Affairs, I was asked to do some research on the basis of our refugee and asylum policy by the then director in the political division. What was evident from the files was an extreme reluctance by the Department of Justice to put anything down on paper with regard to this policy area. Clearly, there was a strong preference for ad hoc oral discussion of issues as they arose and only on a few occasions, and with some considerable effort of political will, was the stonewalling overcome. There is no reluctance, obviously, today to lay down clear legal parameters because we are discussing this Bill.

Since the 1970s, membership of a steadily enlarging EU has increased cross-border mobility. Most immigration to Ireland today comes from within the EU and especially the central and eastern European accession states, which joined in 2004. The view among economists in Germany is that they mistakenly, from an employment point of view, closed their borders with Poland, resulting in skill shortages, which are quite compatible with high unemployment among the relatively unskilled. We decided not to exercise the same liberality vis-À-vis Bulgaria and Romania when they joined the European Union, for fear of putting too much strain on social cohesion. Some social welfare provisions only become available for recent arrivals after a certain length of stay.

From approximately 1999 to 2004, economic pressures caused us to search wider afield. There were jobs fairs in countries such as South Africa. People from Africa and Asia were allowed in more freely than has been the case since 2004, although nursing in particular, hotel staff and a variety of small businesses are partly staffed by immigrants from south-east Asia.

While there is oppression in parts of the world and there are refugees, and I accept the point made by Deputy Higgins that how risks to persons are assessed needs to be more clearly scrutinised as that is not always an easy matter for any court or tribunal to deal with, the attraction of Ireland to foreigners and our need for them is overwhelmingly economic. It is an EU-wide issue, not just an Irish one. Over the past ten years, we have been trying to manage the inflow constructively and in a way which commands public confidence, and we cannot stress too much the need to gain and sustain public confidence. There has been undoubtedly a certain amount of trial and error involved, and that may be part of the price of getting it right in the longer term.

We do not have to look far beyond our borders to see the consequences of getting it wrong — social ghettoisation, street disorders caused as much by those reacting to or feeling threatened by immigrants as by immigrants themselves, isolated but lethal acts of terrorism out of sympathy amongst second generation young people with events in the Middle East, and divisive public controversy over the limits of multiculturalism and about symbols that may or may not be worn or displayed, as well as pressures, which are being addressed here, on such matters as schooling. We must accept, however reluctantly, notwithstanding problems in our various constituencies, that acute pressures must be addressed where they arise as a matter of priority. I also commend Archbishop Martin on his creative response to the challenges to the system of mainly denominational education, with which people are broadly happy.

To manage the challenge of integration successfully, the increase in numbers must not be too great at any one time. Tribute should be paid to many people in the community throughout the country who assist immigrants to settle in.

Ireland is a democratic society, with its own culture and traditions, which are developing and diversifying and which should not be static or stagnant. The cohesion of our society is based not just on the law or Constitution, but on certain values which evolve with time. We should cater for diversity to the maximum extent compatible with social order and cohesion, without — at least in an idealistic sense — apologies for who and what we are. Certainly, most of the countries from which migrants come do not hesitate to protect their own societies, sometimes using methods with which we would not agree and certainly would not use.

On the whole, the experience has been so far a reasonably positive one, which is not to say there are no problems. There is a certain amount of crime and other offences by immigrants, but also against them. We all would have come across complaints about alleged official discrimination in favour of immigrants and that they are taking jobs, but such complaints are to date mercifully few. As I stated yesterday in another context, we should refrain, where at all possible, inside or outside this House, from pitting the interests or position of immigrants against those of our own citizens. We also need by the firm enforcement of employment law to protect immigrants from casual or structured exploitation, which will often have negative knock-on consequences for Irish colleagues in the workforce.

Left to itself, our legal system is anything but expeditious over a wide range of areas, and far beyond the field of immigration. It is necessary in the interests of everyone concerned that decisions are made much more expeditiously as to the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers to stay. No one can be happy that people are left a long time in a state of legal limbo, that people are uprooted when they have begun to settle, and who can blame them for that if they are here for a lengthy period, or that genuine families are kept apart.

Clarification of the law, where it gives rise to ambiguity, prevarication and delay, is necessary. For example, the Bill clearly states in Part 2, section 4 that a foreign national whose presence in the State is unlawful shall leave the State and may be removed in accordance with the provisions of the Act. It also states that the onus of proving identity and rights to stay for a particular nationality lies with the person concerned. There should be no advantage to losing all documentation, or even memory. Indeed, it is reasonable to ask anyone applying to stay in this country that he or she give complete and reasonable co-operation to the authorities here.

There has been very strong criticism, which has just been repeated, of aspects of the operation of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, and of a particular individual well known to me but whom I will not name as I do not approve of mentioning in this House the names of persons outside it. The criticism is mainly on the basis that he, in particular, has turned down all, or almost all, appeals. I do not know whether it is all or practically all. Implicit in the criticism, coming in the first instance from lawyers but echoed by Deputies and some commentators, is that, as in a lottery, out of fairness a certain number should be allowed to win their cases. I regret if the criticism is justified. I have read of few documented examples of persons whose appeals were dismissed on grounds that were demonstrably wrong and unjust. At the same time, the new protection review tribunal takes account of difficulties, whether real or presumed, that have arisen and addresses them so that the reform system presumably will work in a way that is more to general satisfaction.

I have long felt that there should be a structured asylum policy, where we would take in a certain number of genuine applicants under international programmes. Their prior presence in this country would not be required for their applications to succeed. The majority of people who want to come to live in Ireland are economic migrants, and likewise a structured immigration policy, which is being developed, is also needed to deal with that.

I have read complaints that clergy and others officiating at marriage ceremonies would be required to see that such marriages have the necessary clearance. At present, they are obliged to ascertain that those seeking to be married are legally entitled to do so, and in the case of divorce — where the church or office in question recognises divorce — they are obliged to require detailed documentation before proceeding. Many similar obligations are placed on lawyers and accountants and publicans, to name but a few, to ensure they are not condoning or colluding in illegal acts. I do not see a difficulty in principle in that regard.

The Minister is to be notified of instances of marriage with a non-national. That has been criticised strongly by Deputy Higgins, who mentioned that there were alternative ways of dealing with this problem. I accept that Deputy Higgins did not have time to set those out in a 20 minute contribution——

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